


The Lady of the Garden

by DisaLanglois



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Action/Adventure, Africa doesn't get enough love in fandom, Ass-Kicking, F/M, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Goa'uld (Stargate), Season/Series 07, Snaked!Jack, Tok'ra (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11300916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisaLanglois/pseuds/DisaLanglois
Summary: "I am Goa’uld - but I am alone, and young, and surrounded by enemies.  I must fight if I am to survive and claim my birth-right.  I have one advantage: my host.  His name is Jack O'Neill..."On a routine mission, SG1 is captured by a Goa'uld who calls herself Keshefnet, the Lady of the Garden.  In her Garden, Keshefnet has thousands of Goa'uld symbiotes, ready to revive the empire of the System Lords.  But there is one small detail about her prim'tah that Keshefnet does not know ...





	1. Investiture

I began in warm water. Rich oxygenated water, salty with minerals, and fertile with nutrients.

I began in a pool, open, to the barrel vault of a hall. Light streamed down from the high windows of the Tower. 

I began, as I swam near the surface of the pool.  I swam with the rest of my swarm, our tails weaving eagerly, watching the movement in the cold empty air above the pool. 

I recognised she who ruled here: the Lady Keshefnet.  She turned to the tank that stood at the head of the pool, and reached her human hand inside. When she turned, she had a prim'tah in her hand - the oldest and biggest prim'tah among us. 

I watched from the surface of the pool, as she raised the prim'tah in her fist.  I watched, weaving eagerly with the other young prim'tah in my swarm.   Lady Keshefnet raised the prim'tah into the air, and I heard her speak, her words burbling down into the water.

There were three other humans standing close to the pool.  I recognised two of them as Jaffa.  They were restraining a third human between them, and as I watched, they forced him to his knees. 

The silver of his hair gleamed. I had never seen a human with silver hair before.  Keshefnet stepped behind him.  She raised the prim’tah over his silver head, and he threw himself forward, away from her. He fought the Jaffa - he fought desperately to get away from the prim’tah above his head.  His struggles brought him closer to the pool…

For a second, I froze.  But it was now or never!  Surely I would never get a better chance!  I dropped to the bottom of the pool, gathered my strength, and jumped. 

I screamed as I jumped.  I'd never jumped so far! I could fall short - but I had to risk it.  I flew through the air, and I _was_ strong enough, after all. I struck the human  on his bare throat, and cut my way inside.

 _My first host!_ How can I tell you how _right_ it feels to find one's first host!  How can I describe diving into rich hot oxygenated blood for the first time! My instincts guided me to his arteries, his windpipe, and his spine. Every second was critical as I fought to take control.  I slashed for his brain.  

But even as I stabbed up into his brain, things were going wrong. He was fighting back. His muscles were thrashing wildly against me. I felt his rage in the hammering of his heart. I knew what to do, but everything was _wrong._

I invaded his senses, and realized that we had fallen to the ground. He was seizing.  His muscles were hammering his limbs against the floor.  His seizure was battering the back of his own skull viciously against the marble floor.

I knew how to stop the seizure. I invaded his head, took over his motor neurons, and switched off the neck muscles that were seizing. I reached his left hand and took control of it, but to my horror I couldn’t reach the right. I could _feel_ his right hand, but that was it.  I couldn't take it.  No matter how I flailed for his body, I could get no further.

I couldn't master my first host. My first blend was failing! I was too small, too young, too _weak._ We were dying!

I reached into the speech centres of his brain, and shouted at him. _Stop that! Stop fighting me! You are mine now! Accept it!_

“Control your host!”

Filtered through my host’s ears, the voice sounded warped. Yet I knew that voice. I felt a blaze of hatred for her, and I knew that it was not all mine. My host knew that voice too, and his hatred for Keshefnet was so great that he stopped fighting _me._   He froze, and lay still.  I opened his eyes, and felt the scalding light of hatred blossom in them for the first time.

Keshefnet was standing over us. “A failed blending. Disappointing.”

I had my host’s head, and thus I had his voice, complete with the speech centres in his brain: all his own grammar, vocabulary and vocal patterns. I opened his mouth, engaged his vocal cords.

“I am in control,” I said.  My first words ever spoken, and they were a lie.

“He is a senior commander of the Tau'ri,” Keshefnet said. “If you control him, all that he knows is ours.”

This was true, I realized. I ran the words through my host’s word-recognition centres, and a whole landscape of meaning opened up before me. Tau’ri. Human. Air Force. SGC. He was a warrior, I realized; an enemy of the System Lords, in a war to the death.

“Conquering him will be worth the challenge,” I promised. “He will fight, and I will break him.”

She straightened upright. “See to it that you do,” she said.

She turned on her heel, and swept away. Her words were a threat as much as a command. If I was too weak to control my first host, I would die. Incomplete blendings were euthanised.

As soon as Keshefnet walked away, my new host rolled himself upright. He had heard my words through his mouth. He was terrified that he would be forced to betray his duty, and his despair was giving him new strength.  I had his head and neck, but he fought his way to his feet on a tide of rage. I tried to grab his balance and pull him around. He staggered, but somehow he managed to keep his feet, and lurched forward.

 _Stop that!_ I shouted at him, but the open door was before him. I tried to pull him around by his head, but he lunged forward through the door.

 _Stop that!_ I tried to pull up his head, trying to pull him off balance, but he shoved his head down against my control, and kept going. I fought to stop him, but I could not. He was accelerating, crashing unsteadily from side to side, but picked up speed with every stride. I let go of his head, suddenly afraid that he would fall. 

 _This isn’t supposed to happen!_ I wailed, as my host ricocheted off a corner and toward an open door. We flashed out into bright sunlight.  I felt his boots pounding on the terrace. 

_If you won’t stop, I’ll MAKE you stop!_

I reached into his pain centres, straight up his brain-stem, and lashed him with fire as hard as I could. _I will control you!_ I lashed him again and again, flogging him down his back and his legs, but it had no effect.

In fact, the pain only seemed to make him more angry. I could feel his rage building, the insane fury to fight or die. Hitting him was only maddening him more.  He sprinted on, and I let him go. I sat tight inside him, horrified, as he picked up speed.   My host was bolting!  I was going wherever this berserk creature carried me!

_If you don’t stop, we’ll both die! Do you want that? If I die, you die!_

He ignored me, although I knew he heard me.  He raced to the edge of the terrace and the steps flashed by under him. He felt earth under his boots now, and _now_ he picked up speed. 

I thought he’d been running before, but I’d been wrong.  _Now_ he was moving! He was _racing,_ flat out, showing me what he could do, pushing his top speed.  Huge land-animal muscles and bones were powering us forward, faster than I could ever go alone.  I couldn’t even feel his mind any more, just the pressure of his anger, pressed hard against my control. He wasn't even going anywhere - he wasn't running with a plan or a destination.  He was just running.  His instincts commanded him to fight or flight, and since fighting me was impossible his instincts said - _run!_

And I was inside him, being carried along with him, going faster than I had _ever_ imagined going!  I could feel the heat and the adrenalin pounding in his arteries; the sweat on his skin.  I could feel the hammering of his heart and lungs, feel the massive impact of his legs and spine on the ground. His long legs reached out for the ground.   I was riding inside a creature that had _evolved_ to run, and I was going faster than I’d ever imagined. I was _flying_ – and I realized, I was __enjoying__ it.  

Without even realizing it, I had stopped trying to pull him up.  The ornamental walls and flowers were whipping by in a blur. I saw Jaffa guards turning as we raced past them.  Keshefnet's Tower had fallen far behind us already.  When the path opened out to a long straight, I found myself urging him on _faster._

He heard me. He _tried,_ but he didn’t have any more to give me.  And he was _giving_ me his speed now, racing for _me_ now.   I didn’t even touch his head, just let him go.  The path whipped around in a long curve.  I tried to steer him into the turn, but he drove his head down, and then we were whipping around the curve, racing on the edge of balance.  How did he not fall over, turning corners at this speed, I wondered? How did he move so fast, and so _straight?_   How long could he keep up this speed? 

He was starting to tire under me now, and I realized that he was gasping for breath.  His legs were hurting him, muscles burning.  He was going to run until he chose to stop, I realized.  We raced past a fountain and a set of carved stone benches – and then the ground seemed to drop away. 

 _Steps down,_ I realized _.  Stop!_ I screamed.  _  
_

He didn’t even slow down.   If anything, he accelerated.  He aimed his nose on the edge as if he would take off into the sky.

If he fell here he would break his neck! He was going to kill himself, and me inside him!  I yanked his head back as hard as I could, frantically trying to stop him, but I was too late. His last stride drove him off the top into space.

My sudden yank on his head made him slew in mid-air, and I screamed.  We were falling! I let go of his head, giving him freedom to save himself. He tried to twist himself in the air, trying to land on his feet, but it was too late.  I'd pulled him too far off balance. The world spun, and we slammed into the ground, hard.

 _Crunch! Pain!_ His shoulder and flank took the impact. He slammed into the ground on his side, sprawling, bruised, and stunned.

For a second, I panicked that I’d killed him. He couldn’t breathe. I watched the CO2 levels in his bloodstream rise, helplessly.  I'd _killed_ him - he was my first host and I'd _killed_ him. 

And then at last, at last, he managed to inhale.  His breath pulled in, painfully, with an ugly wheezing sound.  He wasn't dying, I realized.  His crunching fall had sent his diaphragm into spasm, and he'd been unable to breathe until it relaxed.  He lay on his side, drawing in deep wheezing gasps as if his airway wasn’t broad enough, and I lay still inside him. 

 _Not doing that again,_ I promised him.

He just gasped for breath.  He didn’t reply, but I didn’t need to specify what I meant by _that._ I had caused him to fall, yanking at his balance like that. And he’d crunched up his knee again, running so fast. It was my fault, and we both knew it.  As gently as I knew how, I gathered up my control over his head again. 

 _Definitely not doing that again._ I had his head, and his left hand, and that was enough.

But he was as unrelenting as ever. _I will never surrender!_ It was the first time he’d spoken directly to me. His voice echoed against the inside of his skull; rich and real, but internal. _  
_

_Keshefnet will kill us both if you do not. Incomplete blendings die._

_Then I'll take you with me!_

_And then Keshefnet will put other prim’tah in your friends! Bigger, older, stronger prim’tah!_

I felt his hatred flare – white-hot. And his emotion meshed with my own hatred for Keshefnet, fueling my fires. Keshefnet had kidnapped his team, his friends.  Keshefnet threatened people he loved with all his heart. 

I reached out for that love, frantically. It was a tiny agreement. If I had one tiny corner of an agreement, then I could build on it!  _I can save your people!  Help me!_

He pulled away, struck by something I had said.

I grasped for the memory, grappling toward him, struggling to reach the alien human mind.  _I can help you!_

 _Why?_   he asked.  A moment later, he reached out for me.

It was the final barrier, and he broke it himself.  I felt our feelings rising, boiling over the last internal compartments between us.  His mind crashed into mine like the ocean over a wall. I was submerged in him, drowning in his memories. I felt _everything_ \- warmth and hate, love and fear, pride and disgrace.  Flight, war, guilt, grief.  Suicide, depression, the taste of alcohol drunk neat late at night alone.  In a sunny garden, I heard the sound of a single gunshot, and I knew what it meant.

 _Your child?_ I cried out, horrified.  _Oh, Jack, no, not your child!_

I reached back to him, and with that my mind broke over _his._ I couldn't have kept myself secret from him, even if I had time to try.  I felt myself pouring into him – all my secrets, all my schemes and dreams were his, all his, in one instant. He knew me, knew exactly who I was, and what I was.  He knew everything, in that instant. 

There on the gravel path, I felt him arch his back and cry out with the shock of our union. True mind to true mind, of one being with my host, and we knew what we would do to Keshefnet.

* * *

 

For the rest of SG1, it felt like the end of the world.

Sam Carter wrapped her hands around her knees and glared through her force-field cage at the tank.  It stood on the other side of the hall, next to the throne. She could see the swimming prim-tah through the translucent glass of the tank. She could swear they were watching her, as if they were hungry.

It was so stupid, Carter thought! So stupid!  It hadn’t even been _their_ mission!  They hadn’t even been looking for Keshefnet; hadn’t even known Keshefnet existed, before this morning! They had blundered into a Jaffa picket on P3G-565 that hadn’t even been looking for them, and now Jack O’Neill was a Goa’uld! Carter had seen the parasite glow in his eyes, and the sight of it made her want to cry. She ground her teeth instead in silent rage. 

To her left, in a cage of his own, Daniel Jackson rammed his boot against his own force shield. It zapped. He swore. 

"It is futile," Keshefnet said. 

The Goa'uld was lounging on her throne.  She had arranged her body so that her black silk robes draped elegantly over the marble, as if she was waiting for something.  She was staring at SG1 with the cold satisfaction of a cat. 

The hall was quiet.  The bright sunlight streamed in through the high windows. The pool that ran down the centre of the marble floor was quiet now, not a ripple on the surface.  The pool, from which the Goa'uld inside O'Neill had jumped, Carter thought.  She squeezed her knees tighter, feeling the hollow nausea inside her stomach.

“I wish to offer you my condolences,” Keshefnet purred.  She picked up a glass of wine from the broad pedestal next to her throne and sipped at it.  “It seems you have not yet won your war, after all.”

“I think we have.” Teal’c spoke up. “You are among the last of your kind.”

“Ah, but I am not the last of my kind at all,” Keshefnet smiled, and put the wine glass down.  The glass clinked against the stone. “Baal and Anubis are going to wipe each other out, but after _they_ have destroyed each other, I will be ready to take their place. My prim’tah hold the key to restoring the System Lords. No, sweet friends, you have not won your war.”

“You are wrong,” Teal’c said. "The false gods are finished. Not now, not soon, but one day, you will be gone."

The smile disappeared, and Keshefnet stiffened on the throne.  “You will not live to see it! _Shol’va!”_

“I do not need to live to see it,” Teal’c said, and his eyes slid closed in a blink. “History does not pause to thank those who are proven right.”

“You are wrong,” Keshefnet said. “History does not even notice creatures as insignificant as you.”

She settled back on her throne, her anger disappearing as quickly as it had risen. She stared at them in their cages, stroking her own lips, as if she was waiting for someone.

A moment later, Jack O’Neill walked in.

“Jack!” Carter blurted. The word escaped before she could stop it. She scrambled to her feet. Daniel was getting up to one knee. Only Teal’c did not move, inside his cage.

But that wasn’t Jack O’Neill any more, Carter thought. It was a parasitic Thing, wearing O'Neill's body.  It still looked like O’Neill, it still walked like O’Neill, with something of O’Neill’s old swagger, but it didn’t even look at his friends. It walked to the foot of Keshefnet’s throne, and bowed before her.

“And what is your name?” Keshefnet asked.

“My name is Oberon,” the Thing wearing Jack O’Neill said.

Carter winced at the harsh metallic rasp coming from that sweet familiar face.

“And who do you serve?” Keshefnet asked.

“I serve you, my lady Keshefnet.” Oberon bowed again. “Lady of the Garden.”

“And your host’s rebellion?”

“Crushed, completely. Body and soul.”

“Prove it.” Keshefnet put one long finger across her lips, and gazed at her newest servant coyly.

“Prove it? How?”

Keshefnet turned to the servant behind her chair, and flicked one finger. The servant came out with a lacquered box, and opened the lid. On the velvet cushion inside was a Goa’uld kara-kesh. The light gleamed on the coppery ribbons, the finger-cups, the golden jewel in its palm.

“Take the weapon, and use it.”

Oberon reached out O'Neill’s right hand for the kara-kesh.  The copper coils slipped around O'Neill's hand, the jewel neatly cupped in his palm.  Oberon lifted it, and turned to face the rest of SG1.

“The _shol’va,”_ Keshefnet ordered.

“As you wish,” Oberon said.

Carter stiffened in horror, as Oberon walked toward them. It stopped right in front of Teal’c’s cage.

Oberon’s spine was perfectly straight. Jack O’Neill had always been a tall man, but Oberon seemed even taller, filled with the cold power of the Goa’uld. Its lips were like a hawk's beak.  It looked down at Teal’c with no expression in its eyes for a moment.  Without bothering to speak, it reached out with the kara-kesh. The amber jewel flamed brightly.

Teal’c sucked in a breath, but he did not make a sound. Golden heat flared between the kara-kesh and Teal’c’s brow.  His huge muscles flexed hard, under the weight of what Oberon was doing to him, but he did not yield, and he did not cry out.

And then Oberon stopped.

Teal’c dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for breath.

“Three more seconds, and you would be dead,” the Goa’uld said.

Teal’c’s face was wet with sweat, but he twisted his head up and glared at Oberon. “Then I would die free,” he rasped, through bared teeth. His hatred was as hot as Oberon's was cold.

“And still you continue to defy your god?” Oberon twisted O'Neill's eyebrows upward. 

Teal’c snarled, and there was fresh blood in his teeth. “False god,” he snarled, and twisted his lips into a sneer. _“Dead_ false god.”

Oberon pulled up one side of O’Neill’s mouth in a sneer.  It turned to Keshefnet, and held out the hand with the kara-kesh. “My lady?”

“Keep it,” she ordered. “You will serve me well with that, and with the knowledge you carry in your host.”

“And them?” Oberon said. It turned, and its eyes fell on Carter. There was no recognition in those brown eyes; no warmth. They might have been the flat white eyes of a corpse.

“I will implant another prim’tah in them as soon as you are settled and fed, my son.”

“With your permission, I would rather keep them, my lady.”

“What would _you_ do with them?”

“Their presence distresses my host. His pain amuses me. I would like to keep them alive to play with.”

“Then they are yours.  Do with them as you like,” Keshefnet said, dismissing the rest of SG1 from her mind. “Come now! Walk with me. You are the first of my children to take a host! We have _so_ much to discuss!”

A moment later, both Goa’uld had left the hall, leaving SG1 to their cages.  Silence fell in the hall. 

Daniel booted his force-shield again, furious. 

"It is not yet futile, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.  “Do not despair.  We have only to wait for the opportune moment.”

“Jack is a Goa’uld!" Daniel said.  "Jack's a _Goa'uld,_ and we're _stuck_ in here!” 

“As Jack O’Neill himself would say, there is always another way,” Teal’c said.

“You saw those guns,” Daniel said. “You saw those orbital forts. You saw those carnivorous plants. You saw that dome. There is _no way._ Nothing is getting in here without Keshefnet’s say-so. And she has _Jack._   She has _Jack!”_

Carter hugged her knees, and did not speak. 

 

* * *

 

That day, I dined with Keshefnet.  We shared a rich spicy stew out of a tagine, and finished our meal with mint tea.  After the meal, I walked with her into the garden. 

My host walked with us.  He had no choice; he went where I told him to go.

Keshefnet and I meandered through her garden.  It had been laid out in geometric perfection, designed for shade and beauty.  The gravel paths wound between low stone walls, and under decorative archways.  Here and there, raised bridges crossed the irrigation canals, in which immature prim'tah swam.  Trees, trellises and archways provided shade, and stone benches provided places to sit and contemplate the view.  The ripple of water and the scent of flowers followed us, heavy on the hot air. 

 _The hanging gardens of_ _Babylon_ _,_ my host said, in the privacy of our shared minds.  His voice resonated inside his own head; internal, yet very real.

I picked the phrase out of his memory.  Half-forgotten Tau’ri mythology. Nebuchadnezzar. Desert. Winged lions with human faces marching in ranks on limestone walls. _The Gardens of Marduk,_ I said. 

 _Daniel would probably know more about it,_ he observed.  _Daniel knows that kind of thing. I just know how to break things._

“Welcome to my garden,” Keshefnet said.

She was looking at me closely.  For a moment I feared that she had somehow heard me speaking to my host.  "It is beautiful, my lady,” I said.

“I have tended my plants here for over three hundred years.  And now, it is ready to become the second birthplace of the System Lords.”

“How so, my lady?”

“The desert sand is rich with naquadah.  The water is the correct temperature, and the correct pH.  The plants have been chosen to nourish the water with the correct nutrients.  In this Garden, prim’tah can grow strong, without needing to be incubated inside Jaffa!  We will have no need of those treacherous shol’va, ever again!”  She reached out and stroked the leaves of a brilliant hibiscus.

 “I hope the Garden is well guarded, my lady?”  I asked.

“Very,” she said.  “It is surrounded by a force dome, which I raise when the Chappa’ai is open,  and when sand-storms blow.  The Garden is scattered with batteries. And the hedge around the garden is planted with carnivorous lianas that seek out living flesh, to keep out the natives.  And above all, the stellar address is not known to our enemies.  During all the wars between the System Lords, this Garden has been secret.  Neither Baal nor Anubis know I am here.  The Goa’uld, the Tok’Ra, the Tau’ri – none of them know I am here.”

 _Surprise, surprise!_ Jack said.

_Be quiet!_

“From here, the System Lords will repopulate the stars, and reinstate the rightful rule of the Gods.  You, Oberon, are only the first of our renaissance.”

“I see,” I said.

“But this place is not ready, not yet,” Keshefnet said.  “I need more weapons.  And I need to capture more Jaffa, and take their prim’tah.  Many more, if I am to repopulate the stars.  We cannot afford to waste them inside Jaffa any longer.  Somewhere in my waters, I must have at least one queen by now.”

“It is a cunning plan, my lady,” I said.  “Worthy of the greatest of the System Lords.”

We came to a stop on one of the little bridges that crossed the irrigation channels.  A prim'tah moved lazily in the dark water.  I could see my reflection, silhouetted against the sky.

So that was what I looked like now, I thought, looking down at my reflection.  I was taller than Keshefnet by over a foot.  I was tall and wiry, with square shoulders – big hands, big shoulders, big bones. 

 The sight struck me with a sense of deep wrongness.  That wasn’t _me_ , I thought.  That couldn't be me!  Wrong shape, wrong height, all wrong.  No wonder I was a failed blending! I had the wrong host! This host didn’t fit me; he wasn’t _me._ I couldn't even _imagine_ a future in which _this_ body was a reflection of me. I felt a surge of revulsion at the sheer _wrongness_ of him... 

  _Hey, hey, cut that out!_ Jack said, suddenly.  I felt his mind wrap around me, filling me with warmth, reaching up and around me to steady me.  _You're inside me, remember?  That's not you, that's me.  That’s what I look like!  Not you!  
_

 I froze, surprised by a warm sensation I did not expect.  I was being reassured by my own host?  None of my ancestors had _ever_ felt reassurance from their host before.  They had all lived locked in mutual hatred, every single one.  I didn't know what to make of the new feeling. 

"My host is valuable," I said.  I turned to face Keshefnet.  "More than you know, my lady.  He knows all the secrets of the Tau'ri.” 

She laughed, tossing her head back.  "Oh, I know exactly who he is!  His fame has spread even here!  He is Jack O'Neill, the slayer of Ra, and Hathor. He serves the Tau'ri.”

"And now I will use him against them.” 

“How?”

“My lady, I can use this host to go back to Earth, and come back with Earth weapons.  The same weapons which slew Hathor, and Ra will soon be in your hands.”

“How will you get them?”

“I have access to all his memories.  I know all that he knows.  He has the highest military clearance. They trust him. I can persuade them to give me whatever I ask for."

Keshefnet smiled.  “I knew you were going to be special, Oberon!  That is precisely what I was going to suggest.”

We crossed a final bridge over a deep-water channel, and came back again to the Tower.  We went inside, and started climbing the staircase that spiralled up inside toward the dome. The plants in here were greener and richer; tropical plants that would not grow in the dry desert air.  The air inside was moist, and smelled like rich potting soil.  We walked up the spiral steps, and found outselves on the top, right under the glass dome.

I told Jack to sit down on the bench next to Keshefnet, and look out over the garden. Keshefnet's Tower swept up into the sky like a bird's wing. We were at the heart of the garden.  From here, I could see the weaving design of the garden, laid out below me like a labyrinth. It was divided into four quarters, with four streams running toward the Tower, into the circular deep-water channel that ran around the Tower like a moat.

 _The rivers of water, milk, honey and wine,_ Jack suggested.

Beyond the wall around the garden, I could see the Chappa’ai, standing outside the garden itself along a stone road.  I could see the hedge that ran all the way around the whole complex, sealing off the complex from the hostile sand of the desert. 

 Beyond the hedge, around the Garden, the lone and level sands stretched away.  The horizon shimmered in the heat.  The sky was a heat-exhausted blue, fading down to a hazy horizon.  On the southern horizon, a line of  snow-capped mountains.  To the north, out of sight, the sea.  The snowy mountains fed meltwater into the river, and the river irrigated the garden.  All this beauty was the gift of those mountains, bringing the desert to life.    

 I felt something moving next to Jack, and turned.  A long vine was unfolding over the rail toward him.  It reached out a green tendril toward Jack's right arm, leaves trembling. 

 “It senses your host’s blood,” Keshefnet said, watching the vine uncurling toward my host.  “It is the same species as the hedge I have planted around my Garden to keep out the human vermin.” 

 _Maybe it likes me?_   Jack suggested.  He didn't move a muscle.  I watched as the vine reached out a bright red flower toward his elbow.  It brushed his skin with its stamen – and I felt a jab of pain.

 _Ow!_ Jack jumped to his feet without being asked.  "It bites!" I said.  There were four beads of blood on his fore-arm.  

 “Of course,” Keshefnet said, smirking.  She did not stand up. 

Bitch!  She hadn't thought to _warn_ me that her damn plant would bite my host? 

 Keshefnet seemed amused.   “If you want the hedge to ignore you, you should spend the night in my Sarcophagus,” she said.  “Your host needs more naquadah in his blood.  The Sarcophagus will accelerate the process.”

  _No!_ Jack tensed up instantly.  _Not that, not that, not that!_ I could feel gooseflesh running up his arms.  Ice-cold cortisol was already hammering through his veins. I felt him try to pull away from me.  The Sarcophagus frightened him.  

 _I won't do that to you,_ I said to him.  _I won't do anything to you that you don't want.  
_

And he believed me.  I felt his cortisol and adrenalin recede, just a little.  His heart rate slowed. 

Another new and surprising feeling.  I had managed to reassure my host with a few words?  Never, in all my millenia of memories, had any Goa'uld ever been able to _reassure_ their host before. I could not control his body, but he listened to me, and trusted me.  This was new, and it was nice.  I was different, but for the first time, I didn’t mind.

I reached out my left hand, and wrenched the flower off the vine.  _Nothing will happen to you that you don't want,_ I promised him, and crushed the flower in my fist.  Red petals fell between my fingers to the floor.

 “Soon, my lady,” I lied to Keshefnet.  “I will use the Sarcophagus soon.  For now, my lady, I have work to do.  I need a way to return to the SGC, so that I do not arouse suspicion.” 

 “That can be arranged,” she said.  “The hard part will be persuading the Tau’ri to trust you with their weapons.  Your host’s team know that you are Goa’uld.  It would be easiest to kill them, and send you back to Earth alone.”

"No,” I said.  “I can use them.  If they think I helped them escape, they will believe that I am still their loyal servant.”  

“Will they?

“I know their weaknesses.  And I will tell them what they most want to hear.  I will tell them a story that they will want to believe.” 

 “And what is that?”

 “That I desire to join the Tok’Ra.”

 She smiled, struck by the idea.  “The Tok’Ra!”

 “They are the allies of the Tau’ri.” 

 “And will they believe you?”

 “They will believe my host,” I promised.  “I can make him say anything I want.  I will tell them what they want to hear, and they will give me what I want.” 

 “Tau’ri weapons,” she said.  "With Tau'ri weapons, I can take the fight to my rivals." 

 “Grant me two days, my lady,” I said.  “In two days, I will come, bearing as many weapons as the Tau’ri will give me.”

 “I will give you the code to enter through the Dome,” she said.

 “And you will have your Jaffa stand down, so that they do not open fire on me?” 

 “I will,” she said, smiling.  “Two days, Oberon?” 

 “My lady, to this I pledge my word.”  I bowed, hiding my face, so that my feelings were not betrayed by my eyes.  “In two days, I will return with Tau’ri weapons.  _Lots_ of weapons!” 

 

* * *

 

SG1 had been removed from their cages in the hall.  They had been removed to a single cell, floored with straw – the Jaffa could be _very_ traditional sometimes.  One of their guards, in a rare moment of compassion, had given Daniel his glasses back, but not his anti-histamines, and his nose was dripping miserably.  They were fed some sort of goat stew, and then they were left alone. 

 It was hard to know how long they had sat in the straw, before the door opened.  The Jaffa guard turned to face the door, and immediately stood at attention. 

 A figure in a long blue robe walked in.  “You.” 

 “My lord?” the Jaffa said.    

 “Out.” 

 “Yes, my lord.”  The Jaffa went. 

 O'Neill-that-wasn’t walked up to the bars.  It folded its arms across its chest, and looked at the team.  “You three all right? They treating you okay?  I see you got your glasses back, Daniel.” 

 “Go away,” Daniel said, speaking for all of them. 

 Carter looked up at him, and found that she couldn’t meet Oberon’s eyes.  An alien parasite was looking out of O'Neill's face, and it was more than she could bear.  She bit her lip, and looked down at the base of the bars. 

 “Carter, it’s me,” the Goa’uld said.  She heard it kneeling.  “Look at me.” 

 She loved that voice, and she couldn’t help herself.  She looked up. 

O’Neill was down on one knee, right in front of her, gazing at her, and for a moment he was O’Neill again.  He was looking through the bars at her, and at the sight of those kind brown eyes, she felt tears welling up. 

 “Carter, it’s me.” 

 “It’s not you.  I know it’s not you,” Carter said, shaking her head.    

 “It’s me, Carter!  Listen to me.  We’re going to get you all out of this place.  Just sit tight, be patient, and wait. 

 “Who’s we?” 

 “Me and Oberon.  We’ve got a plan.” 

 “You’re a _Goa’uld,”_ Carter said. 

He flinched, and suddenly it was Oberon who was looking at her.  Carter saw the stiffness fall over Jack’s face; the alien coldness in its eyes.  She couldn’t help herself; she flinched away in disgust at the change. 

 The Goa’uld stood up, and stood over her, looking down on her coldly.  “I am Oberon,” it said.  It had been assuming O'Neill’s voice, but now it gave up all pretence of being human. 

 “You’re the son of Keshefnet.”

  “I am _not_ the son of Keshefnet!”  Its eyes flared golden; the anger of the alien inside Jack’s brain.  “Keshefnet is a drone!  I will destroy this false queen, and I will take her garden from her!” 

 Carter tried not to flinch.  “Yeah, and why is that?” 

 “Because she stole me from my Jaffa!”  Its eyes flashed, both hands knotting into fists. 

 Carter frowned.  “What?” 

 “All the prim’tah in this place have been stolen!”  Oberon snarled.  “I watched my Jaffa die.  He was mine, and she _took_ him from me.  My Jaffa was mine!  _Mine– !”_   

 Oberon broke off and threw itself backwards.  It lurched away to the nearest open cell, and slammed itself into the bars it a few times.  _Crash, crash_ , sideways into the steel, as if it was wrestling with an invisible opponent. 

“Shut up, shut up, _shut up!”_ it yelled at itself.  “I’ve heard _enough_ about your dumb Jaffa!  _Aah!”_

 “Colonel?”  Carter asked. 

  _Crash,_ into the bars again.  “Stop that, _stop that,_ you’re going to bang up your knee again!  Do you _want_ to fail your flight quals?”  

 “Uhhh.  Jack?  What are you doing?”  Daniel asked.  His eyebrows were right up behind his glasses.  He looked as if he’d just realized that the person he was speaking to was a complete lunatic, and didn’t know whether he should shout for help now or play along until he could get away.  

 “S’cuse us, we’re having a _small_ internal dispute,” O'Neill said, and it _was_ O'Neill's voice again this time.  JO'Neill – or Oberon – or both – left off bashing themselves into the walls, and turned back to face them. 

 “Look, if you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can say to convince you.  Is there?  Anything I say doesn’t matter, because you think Oberon is making me say it?” 

 “Pretty much,” Daniel agreed. 

 “Indeed,” Teal’c said.    

 “Okay, then, you three just sit tight right there, and we’ll get you out …” 

 And with that, the Goa'uld was gone again.  The door swung shut behind him.  After a few minutes, the Jaffa sentry came back and resumed his silent watch over the cells. 

"Bastard," Daniel said. 

 “Indeed.” 

 

* * *

 

I left the prison cells, and walked alone through the garden.  Night had fallen.  Lights bloomed at our movement – not lights, but alien flowers that glowed in the dark, attracting nocturnal pollinators.  Jaffa sentries stiffened to attention as I passed. 

 Seeing the rest of SG1 had disturbed us both.  My genetic memories and Jack’s memories were all swimming together.  I remembered them as enemies – but I also knew them as Jack's friends, loved and cherished.  I knew them, I felt Jack's love for them, I had so many warm memories of them – but they did not know me.  Their faces had been hard with hatred. 

Except Samantha Carter.  _She_ had looked ready to cry.   

  _They don’t trust us,_ Jack said.  He was trying not to think of how much he loved Carter, trying to hide his feelings for her.       

_Why would she trust me? She doesn’t know what you know._

  _I could tell them,_ he offered. 

  _No.  Not yet._

You _don’t trust_ them, _either,_ he observed.

_I trust no-one but myself._

Keshefnet had given me a kiosk in the gardens.  It was a small marble structure, columns and carved stonework.  The tiles had been decorated with curling blue vines and tulips.  Outside, the water giggled  through the irrigation channels; soft night music, and very peaceful. 

Someone had brought in SG1’s equipment, and piled it all on the broad marble table in the centre of the kiosk. 

I spent a few minutes sitting on a stool, watching Jack open and close the pockets in his vest and equipment belt.  He indulged my curiosity, identifying each piece for me one by one.  Radio, first aid kit, compass, emergency rations, ammunition… 

 “And here’s my favourite,” he said aloud, and I realized that without even noticing, he’d taken back control of his head and voice.  He reached out and picked up the largest weapon on the table. 

 “The FN P90 compact submachine gun,” he said aloud, “Carries a 50-round detachable top-loading magazine with Teflon-coated armour-piercing ordnance, with a cyclical rate of fire of 900 RPM.  Effective range 660 feet, maximum range 5900 feet. Note the straight blow-back and the downward ejection. Length 20 inches, weight 6 pounds, barrel length 10.4 inches …”

 I had already heard as much as I wanted about the FN P90. 

 “Ah, I haven’t started talking about _aircraft_ yet, kiddo,”  he said, noticing my disinterest.  “Wait till I tell you about the F-302 fighter-interceptor.  Now _that's_ a plane!”

 _What is this thing?_   I interrupted him, reaching out with his left hand to pick it up. 

 He grinned, knowing that he was being deliberately interrupted.  

“Garage Door Opener,” he said aloud.  He shifted to speaking internally, realizing that this was something Keshefnet would love to hear.  _It sends an ID code to the SGC, letting them  know that it’s us, and asking them to open the Iris._  

  _Iris?_

 He sent me a clear mental image of a great metal shield closing around the Chappa'ai.   _ET tries to phone home without a GDO, and he’s going to play Splat-a-cake with the inside of the Iris._

 _You do like your word-play, don’t you?_ I asked, amused.

 “Oh, come on!  You gotta laugh in this line of work, otherwise you’ll go crackers.”

_So, the GDO is similar to the dome code?_

“Yeah, something like that.  We’ll need the GDO to get into the SGC, and we’ll need the dome code to get back.” 

 _We have work to do,_ I said.  _If we want to get back._

 “You can read this stuff?” he asked. 

  _Of course I can!  I am Goa’uld._

I sat down at the table and opened the computer.  Keshefnet might be thousands of years younger than Apophis, but she used exactly the same operating system in her computers – not clever.  I would correct that as soon as I ruled here.  The layout and fortifications were filed right where Apophis would have put them, and I pulled them up into a hologram over the table.  

 It seemed that Keshefnet had been building herself a fortress here for over three hundred years, centred on the Chappa’ai.  The planet had been settled by Ra, but thousands of years ago the great savannah had dried up, and the Chappa’ai had been covered with sand.  The System Lords had forgotten about it, until Keshefnet arrived by ship and dug it out again.  She had ruled here undisturbed for three hundred years, because no-one knew she was here.  For three hundred years, she had been cultivating and propagating plants from all over the galaxy. 

 The prim’tah in the garden were her newest project.  Most of them were younger than me, brought here after the rebellion of the Free Jaffa.  In the middle of the revolt, the System Lords had not noticed which of their Jaffa had rebelled, and which had simply vanished. 

 _Two thousand prim’tah,_ Jack observed. 

  _And every one of them means a dead_ _Jaffa_ _,_ I said.  _Just like mine._

  _She’s banking on finding a queen among them,_ he said.  _And if she gets one, she could repopulate the System Lords all over again._ Jack’s mind flashed back through his long war against the System Lords.  All those deaths… all over again.    

 _We will stop her_ , I promised.

 Both Jack and I tried our best to memorise as much as we could of the fortifications, but Jack could only concentrate so long.  He opened the files for me, his hands moving where I asked him, but he stopped focusing and let me read alone.  I kept control of his head, moving his eyes, reading through him, but I left him to his own thoughts.  His mind drifted after a while.

 I don’t know how it happened, or why I didn’t notice it happening.  I had closed his eyes, trying to remember the exact route through the maze of the gardens.  He had been sagging over the table, and quite suddenly he leaned forward and put his head down on his arms.  And then he was gone. 

  _Jack!_   I grappled for his mind, and caught up to him inside a weird alternate reality.  He was in a large chamber I recognised as the Gate Room of the SGC, but how the hell had he got here?  Surely we were still sitting at the table in the kiosk?  And what was Carter doing here?

  _Jack?_   I asked, but his focus was all on Carter.  He was doing something with her that I knew he had never before. 

  _Jack?_   I asked, and realized the truth a second later.  He was dreaming.   

 I opened his eyes.  We were still sitting at the table, but he had gone limp.  I touched his mind, but he barely noticed.  He was fast asleep. 

 Finally, I could take control!  In sleep, he was paralyzed.  It was a natural physiological mechanism to prevent sleepers from hurting themselves in their dreams.  While he was asleep, I had sole command of his body!   

  _No._    

 I stopped, just touching his motor neurons. 

  _No._   I had promised him that I would do nothing to him that he didn’t want.  He had agreed to help me willingly, but I had no right to his help if I took it by force.  I had made a promise, and I would keep it.   I had his head, and his left hand, and I would be content. 

 Still, there were things I could do for him while he slept.  He could roll around with dream-Carter to his heart’s content, and I could focus my attention on parts of his body that I hadn’t been able to reach while he was awake.  He was not old, not yet, but the accumulated damage from a long tough life were starting to pile up on him. 

 I found some calcifications around an old skull fracture, and cleared them away.  I adjusted the pressure inside the vitreous humours of his eyes.  I had a look at his hearing, but those microscopic hairs in there were just _gone_ , destroyed by too much gunfire at close quarters for too long.  There was simply not enough left to repair, and I gave up. 

 The inside of his arteries – ye gods – I scrubbed those out thoroughly, and wrung the gunk out into his bloodstream for his kidneys to deal with.  After that, I got to work on the cartilage in his spine and fingers.  The cartilage was just starting to grind down, but hopefully he should get another thirty good years out of his joints now, and he might never even notice there had been damage at all. 

 At last, I turned my attention to his knee.  His knee was a _wreck._   He’d pounded on it too hard for too long, and the damage was getting worse every time he ran or jumped.  Three knee operations hadn’t done very much good; the knee was the most complex joint in the human body.  All those bones fitting together in the same narrow space, inside a nest of ligaments and sinovial fluid.  Well, at least I could do what human medical science could not – but when I tried, I couldn’t get to it.      

His knee was too far away.  I couldn’t reach it.  I could _see_ what was wrong, but I couldn’t get down there.   I stretched my control as far as I could, but I couldn’t get down that far down his body.  Even with him asleep, I just couldn’t reach his knee. 

 I was just too small. 

 I sat back, and observed the knee for a bit.  Maybe, if I surrendered his left hand, that would give me enough strength to …

 “My lord?” 

 The voice surprised Jack as much as me.  He jerked awake, clutching at the table and sitting up.  He panicked instinctively at my touch before he remembered where he was. 

  _Easy, easy, easy, it’s only me._   I spoke for us both.  “Speak, Jaffa!” 

 Keshefnet’s old First Prime had come into the kiosk.  He was staring at me with a very strange look on his face.  “My lord, are you well?” 

 “No, I am well.”  I stopped Jack from rubbing his mouth. 

 “I have brought what I was ordered, my lord.” 

 “Put it there,” I pointed to the other table, and the Jaffa obeyed.  He set a large bag onto the table.  

 “I have another order for you.  I want you to go and fetch the rest of my host’s team.”

 “Do you want me to bring them here, my lord?”

 “No.  Take them to the Pavilion of Falling Water.”  I had found it on the holographic map.  It was the closest pavilion to the exit gate of the garden, and a good place for doing what I wanted to do.  “I will deal with them there.” 

 “Yes, my lord.”  The Jaffa bowed, and went out.  I heard his boots crunching away over the garden path. 

  _Well, well, what have we got?_ I asked Jack to walk to the table, and he opened the bag.  As Jack had indulged my curiosity, I now indulged his.  Together we put names and functions to several pieces of Goa’uld technology that the Tau’ri had been unable to figure out.   My kara-kesh.  A personal cloaking device.  A genetic reader.  A sample of poisons, explosives, and corrosives.  A hand-held laser cutter.  A device to lock a ring transporter on a particular location.  A Vo’cume holographic communicator, and a long-range communicator.   Keshefnet had given me everything a Goa’uld assassin would need to attack and destroy a military base like the SGC. 

  _Area 51 is going to jump for joy when they see this,_ Jack said.  He picked up a small japanned box.  Inside lay a large gold ring, with a large red jewel.  He put it on, and it immediately glowed. 

 _Jewellery?_   he asked. 

  _That must be the dome code,_ I said. 

 _Then we're ready,_ Jack said.  _Time to go._

 He strapped his body armour and weapons belt on, and wrapped the long blue robe over it.  He slid his right hand into the kara-kesh, and slung the P-90 over his shoulder.  All of SG1’s weapons went into the bag that the old Prime had brought, and he slung that over the other shoulder.  We were ready for war, I thought.  

We left the kiosk, and walked out into the darkness.  I steered Jack down the paths with touches to his neck.  He walked steadily, strolling along at a comfortable pace, as if he owned the place.   As we went, we passed a few of Keshefnet’s gardeners, still at work.  They were human, not Jaffa; hostages to the obedience of the desert clans.  They were tall men in long blue galabiyyas, with turbans wrapped around their heads.  They backed away from us as we passed, and Jack ignored them, as a Goa'uld would. 

 I knew already where the Pavilion was, and I steered Jack there without any mistakes.  Hidden lighting under the water came on, and blue ripples of light danced on the walls.   I asked Jack to put the bag down, and sit down on a stone bench, facing the water.  He obeyed, and held the Zat’nik’tel on his thigh.  We waited. 

  _Do you think she’s watching?_

_I hope so.  We’re putting on a show for her benefit.  This has to look good._

We did not wait long.  I saw lights outside, and heard the crunch of boots in unison on gravel – Jaffa, marching everywhere they went, even at night. 

 A moment later, the rest of SG1 were led in, prodded by three Jaffa.  The Tertiary barked an order, and the other two Jaffa forced the team to their knees in a row, and then stood to either side, staff-weapons grounded, waiting to see what I would do. 

 “What are you doing here?”  Of course, it was Jackson who spoke up.

I let Jack answer, since they were his beloved companions, not mine.  He stood up, slowly.

“Ah, you know.  The usual.  Making friends, influencing people, fucking over the Snakes whenever I find them ..." 

He raised the Zat and zapped the nearest Jaffa.

The first one dropped, taken by surprise.  The other two tried to swing their staff weapons into line, but Jack turned the Zat and caught them both tangled up together.  They dropped in a heap on the floor.  Carter jumped up just in time to avoid getting squashed by 400 pounds of falling Jaffa.

“Time to go, boys and girls!” Jack yelled.  “Grab your guns, and let’s get out of here!”

"Uh, Jack?  What the hell is going on?" 

"Colonel?”  Carter said.  "Is that ... you?" 

“Can we talk about this later!” Jack demanded.  “Grab your guns, _now!_   _Move_ it, before the Jaffa get here!   Daniel, _yes_ that one’s yours, _cock_ it for crying out loud!  Come on, let’s go!”

He moved to the door of the pavilion, and took a look around the column.

A file of sentries was coming at double-time, alerted by the firing of the Zat.   After _years_ of being taken by surprise, it had finally dawned on the Goa’uld that it might be a good idea to install alarms inside their bases.  The sentries were running in a file, zooming straight for the pavilion.

“On your nine o’clock, Colonel," Carter said. 

“Move!”  Jack and Carter hooked around the columns together and opened fire.  The Zat jumped in his hand.  The whole file of sentries went down all in one go, between one stride and the next _._  

“Clear, let’s go!”

Jack jumped out of the pavilion and ran down the path, and I perforce ran with him.   A second later, the rest of his team were behind him.  We raced for the gate to the road.

A Jaffa somewhere out of sight started shouting, and then someone opened fire.  Blasts of fire burst from the marble nearby.  A split-second later, I found myself with Jack’s nose pressed close to brickwork.  He and the team had dived into cover, moving so fast I hadn’t even had time to tell him what to do.

 _They’re shooting at us!_ I squawked.  I hadn’t expected to be shot at.

“They’re the enemy!” Jack said aloud. “It’s allowed!”

_Keshefnet hasn’t even bothered telling them we’re supposed to escape!_

“To her, they’re just cannon fodder,” Jack said.   “Thin armour, old weapons, they're just bullet-catchers to her…”

“Jack?” Daniel Jackson asked, staring at us with wide eyes.

“Internal comms, Daniel!” Jack yelled back.  “Teal’c, with me!  Come on!”

We jumped out of cover.  Teal’c fired a few times with his staff weapon, and Jack opened up with his P-90.  Both fired high, and the Jaffa ducked down.  Carter and Jackson broke from cover and ran, and a second later Teal’c and Jack ran after them. 

We ran around a wide curve, around a trellis, crossed a slip of lawn, and there was the archway out of the garden.  The Dome shimmered beyond it, almost invisible in the dark.

One last figure stepped out from under the archway, but he did not fire.  It was the old Prime.  Teal’c lined his staff-weapon, but almost in the same movement the Prime threw down his own.  It clunked on the flag-stones.  He raised his hands.

“Hold your fire!”  Jack yelled.  We ran the last of the way to the archway, and Jack thrust himself forward into the old man’s front, pushing him under the arch.  Carter, Jackson and Teal’c joined us in the temporary cover.

“What are you doing here?”  I demanded.

The Prime was unarmed, but he was unafraid.  “You are no god,” he said, staring at me.  “Never in all my years have I seen a god fall asleep.  You are something else, Oberon.”

“He is right,” Teal’c spoke up without turning around.  “The false gods do not sleep.”

“That’s because I am _not_ a god!” I said.  “I am Goa’uld, but the Goa’uld are not gods, but liars, and oppressors!”

I saw the recognition and agreement on the Prime’s lined face.  “And you know it!  You are a rebel!”

The fame of the Free Jaffa rebellion had reached even here!  Keshefnet had tried to hide in her garden for three hundred years – but as long as your Chappa’ai was open, information would flow through it.  Ideas could not be stopped by an event horizon.

“I would be a rebel, if I could,” the old man said.

“You can, if you will it!”  I said.  Jack reached out, and gripped the Prime’s arm.  The old Prime gripped him back, elbow to elbow in the Jaffa style.  For an old man, he had hard fingers.   “How many of you are there in the Garden?”

“Not enough to defeat Keshefnet.”   

“Enough, now, with the Tau’ri to help you!”  I said.  “If you want to be free, help me!”

“How?”

“Those guns!”  Jack knew which ones I meant.  He pointed across the garden to the lightning-cannon batteries.  “Make sure those guns aren’t charged up in two days.  I’ll be back in two days, and I’ll take this garden from Keshefnet.  Put men you trust on those guns, and _don’t_ charge them up!  Two days, do you understand.”

“I will see to it, my lord.”

“I’m not your _lord!”_   I snapped, and Jack shot him in the chest with the Zat.  He fell like a stone next to his staff weapon.  Now he was indistinguishable from all the others, and safe from Keshefnet.  

Jack turned.  Jackson and Carter had gone under the archway, but they’d been stopped by the dome.  Jackson was holding his hand under his armpit, by which I understood that the idiot had tried poking the force field.

“Sir?” Carter’s voice was shrill.  “Now what?  We can’t get out the dome.”

“Watch this,” Jack said.  He reached into his belt, and pulled out the dome code ring.  He rammed it onto his finger.

The shimmering wall evaporated. “Ah, the cleverness of me!  Move out!”

We raced out along the road.  Jack raced under me, hitting his top speed even under the weight of his armour, pack and weapon.  His knee was already going _pong-pong-pong_ , so I dealt with it on the fly by just switching off all his pain neurons. The stones underfoot were worn smooth, and Jack remembered them from his way in here, just hours ago.  We raced up to the DHD, standing on its pedestal.

In the distance, just visible in the dark, the hedge was beginning to move.

“Daniel!”  Jack shouted without looking around.  “Dial us up!  Get us out of here!”

Behind us, shouts.  I whipped around.   To my side, Teal’c dropped to one knee.

“More Jaffa in-coming!”  Carter shouted.

 _Take off the ring!_   I snapped at Jack.  He pulled off the ring, and the dome flashed back up.

The Jaffa still inside the dome were suddenly cut off.  Their parting shots splattered fire against the inside of the dome, uselessly.  I heard a scream of rage, and a Tertiary bellowing orders.

The two Jaffa already outside the dome kept coming, with their usual suicidal bravery.  They were rushing headlong up the road toward us in a suicidal charge.

 _Jack?_   I asked.

Jack needed no explanation.  He raised his right arm, aiming toward the oncoming Jaffa.   I reached out through him and swatted them both aside with the kara-kesh.  They were blasted off their feet, disappearing through the air into the darkness.

Teal’c fired again, keeping the pressure on them, so they didn’t just pop up and come back for more.

In the sudden silence I heard the last chevron lock home.  The night was lit by the vortex of the wormhole, churning overhead.

 “GDO accepted, let’s go!” Carter screamed.  “Move, move, move!”

Jack yanked his head out of my control, and whirled around.  He sprinted for the Chappa’ai, shoulder to shoulder with Carter, following Jackson. We ran straight up the steps, dived into the wormhole, and jumped across the stars…   

 


	2. Interregnum

SG1 popped out of the Stargate into the Gate Room. O’Neill caught himself in a half-jog. He slowed to a stop.

Sam Carter spun around. Her P-90 was coming up. “Drop the weapon!” she barked. “Drop it, now!”

Oberon froze to a stand-still. He let go of the P-90, and it dropped to the ramp with a clatter. In her peripheral vision, she saw Teal’c raise his staff weapon, and heard the weapon charge up.

“Major Carter!” The voice behind her was Hammond’s. “What in tarnation are you…”

She didn’t turn around, didn’t blink. She kept her eyes on O’Neill, over the sight of the P-90. _Don’t make me shoot Jack,_ she prayed, _please, please don’t make me shoot Jack._

As if he heard her, Oberon raised both hands.

“Major Carter?” Hammond barked. 

“He’s a Goa’uld, sir!” she snapped.

Oberon did not look away from her. “My name is Oberon.”

With a slamming crash, the Iris closed over the Stargate. Walter’s voice echoed over the loudspeakers.

“Code 17 in the Gate Room! This is not a drill! Code 17 in the Gate Room!”

* * *

 

Ten minutes later, Colonel Jack O’Neill and the Goa’uld inside him were secured in a small interrogation room. He – they – were handcuffed to the table. Oberon made no complaint, gave no struggles. He waited, as coldly as if he was waiting for a bus.

Carter watched on the TV screen in the observation room.  She could see Oberon, sitting at the table.  Her view was from the video camera, looking down over the small room.

“This isn’t our first rodeo, Sam,” Daniel said. “We’ll get Jack back.”

“I know,” Carter said.

It wasn’t the SGC’s first time interviwing a Goa’uld – but not like this. This one was inside Colonel O’Neill, probably the most valuable American military officer since Eisenhower. This one was inside Jack. 

Carter folded her arms over her chest, and then unfolded them again. Her after-action adrenalin was still making her feel shaky. 

The door of the interrogation room opened. Oberon seemed to sharpen, focusing his attention on the door. On the screen, General Hammond walked in and closed the door behind him. He sat down in the chair opposite the Goa’uld.

“Your name,” Hammond demanded. His eyes were hard, in his round face; his mouth was tight-lipped. He wasn’t a big man, but he dominated the room.

“I am Oberon. And I am here with a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I made a deal with Jack,” Oberon said. “I would help him escape, and in return the SGC would help me. I’ve held up my end of the bargain. Now it’s your turn. Give me troops, and weapons. Help me go back to the garden, and kill Keshefnet.”

“Kill Keshefnet?” Hammond asked. “Now, why would we do a thing like that?”

“Because the Tau’ri are at war with the System Lords. And I am at war with the System Lords! So I made a deal with Jack. Help me kill Keshefnet. And you will end her threat before it begins.”

“You’re the son of Keshefnet. Why do you want to kill your own queen?”

Anger flamed in Oberon’s eyes. “I am _not_ the son of Keshefnet! Keshefnet is a drone, not a queen! I am the child of Apophis!”

“Apophis?”

“Lord Apophis was my sire. His queen Amunhet was my mother.”

“Apophis is dead. And your host helped kill him…”

“Jack is not my host!” the Goa’uld interrupted coldly. “Don’t call him that. He hates that word. The Tok’Ra have hosts, and I am not Tok’Ra!”

“Then what is he?”

“Call him my ally. My accomplice. My companion!”

“Oberon, you are inside one of my people without his consent,” Hammond said. “That makes him your host, and you a parasite.”

“I have his consent,” Oberon said. “He consents to sharing his body with me, temporarily. We made a deal. A tactical alliance.”

“You have a deal that lead to you torturing Teal’c with a kara-kesh.” Hammond jerked his chin up. “Excuse me for not finding that very friendly, Oberon.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hammond said, anger and surprise on his face. “I have Teal’c and two witnesses saying otherwise.”

Jack came back.

There wasn’t the usual dip of the head, as the symbiote handed the reins back to the host. Jack was just there, inhabiting the lines of his own face again, warming up his own gaze.

“Sir, that wasn’t Oberon.” He leaned forward, pressing his long fingers against the table-top. “That was me.”

“Jack?” Hammond frowned. He could see the difference in the Goa’uld’s face, but he had learned the hard way how well the enemy could mimic the voices and mannerisms of their victims.

O’Neill looked around to video camera, wired up in the corner of the room, as if he knew who was on the other side. “If Teal’c is there – I hope he’s there – I’m real sorry, T! If there was any other way, I’d have done it, but we couldn’t risk Keshefnet figuring it out.”

“Why?”

“Because Oberon doesn’t control me.”

“So you say.”

“I’m serious, General. He says he’s too young. He’s got my voice and my left hand, which is freaky enough, believe me. But he’s too young to take over more. Ask Teal’c which hand I used, sir! I used my right hand. My right hand is mine. Ask Teal’c, which hand.”

Hammond looked up at the video camera in the corner.

In the other room, Carter and Daniel both looked away from the monitors, looking at Teal’c.

“He did use his right hand,” Daniel said.

“He did,” Teal’c said. “My memory of the incident are particularly sharp.”

O'Neill was still speaking.  “We couldn’t let Keshefnet know that we’re not … not that kind of Goa’uld,” he was saying to Hammond, in the other room. “You gotta tell Teal’c that, sir. It was me, not Oberon.”

“Why?”

“Oberon knew he couldn’t hack it alone, so we cut a deal instead. He’d help us get out of there, and in return I said we’d help him kill Keshefnet.”

“Why?”

A half-shrug of O’Neill’s shoulder. “Jealousy, I think. Oberon wants that garden for himself. I don’t get the obsession with gardening, but I was making it up as I went along. So we cut a deal. His help to get out of there; my help to get back in again.”

“Except that I have no way of knowing who’s really speaking to me right now, do I?” Hammond asked. “Are you Colonel O’Neill, or Oberon using O’Neill’s voice?”

“It is me, General.”

“Sorry, Oberon, I’m not buying it,” Hammond said. “You have all your host’s memories. And I’ve seen too many times, far too many times, how good your people are at infiltration.”

“Once we’ve done what I said we’ll do, Oberon will pull out,” O’Neill said. “He promised, and I believe him.”

Hammond sat back in his chair. He had heard enough. “I’m afraid I simply cannot accept the word of a Goa’uld, Oberon. And I have already sent an urgent message to the Tok’Ra.”

“Oh, fantastic,” O’Neill pulled up his lip. “My day is complete.”

“And when they get here, they are going to withdraw you from Colonel O’Neill by force.”

“No! NO!” Both hands tightened into fists. “Sir, I can’t allow that! Sir, I gave my word!”

“Enough!” Hammond said, flatly. “I know I am speaking to a Goa’uld, and that you are lying. The most I can offer you, Oberon, is that if you withdraw from my officer's body now, we will allow you to return with the Tok’Ra, who will see to it that you are freed, in an uninhabited world with a suitable lake.  On condition that you withdraw from Colonel O’Neill, willingly, right now.”

“General! You don’t know what’s going on here! You have to trust me on this! Oberon is a g…!” 

O’Neill jumped as if an electric shock had gone through him.

"Yes," Hammond said.  "Oberon is a Goa'uld.  We know.  This interview is at an end. The Tok’Ra are on their way.”

"Wait!" O'Neill said.  He pulled himself sideways, away from Hammond, twisting out of his chair as if struggling with an invisible attacker. _"Oh, for crying out loud!"_ he hissed, shaking his head from side to side. 

Hammond pushed his chair back, and left the room.

O’Neill bent double over the table, banging his own brow onto his locked fists. “Oh, you idiot, you idiot, you idiot!” he moaned.

The observation gallery was across the corridor.  The senior officers of the SGC, and the rest of SG1 were crammed into the small room; the lights of the bank of monitors reflected off their tense faces.  Hammond opened the door, and went it.  Sergeant Walter pushed himself backwards out of the way, so that his commander could see. 

O’Neill was still sitting where Hammond had left him.  He was shaking his head and muttering to himself, but his words were too soft for the audio pick-ups.

“This is like watching a friend having a psychotic break,” Carter said, miserably.

“If I didn’t know better,” Daniel Jackson said.  “I would swear they were _fighting_ each other.”

“It’s not possible,” Carter said.  “The symbiote always wins.  Or, both host and symbiote die together.  The Tok’Ra were very clear on that.”  _  
_

“We have seen symbiotes struggle to control their hosts before,” Hammond said.

“Yes, sir, but that was in Stevestown,” Carter said.  “Those clones weren’t mature, and they had no naquadah in their blood.  They weren’t strong enough.”

“There was naquadah in the garden, was there?” Hammond asked.   

“Yes, sir,” Carter agreed.  “And lots of it.”

“I concur,” Teal’c said.  “I could sense the concentrations.”

“Sir,” Carter said.  “The channels in Keshefnet’s garden are _full_ of prim’tah.  Keshefnet must have hundreds, if not thousands of Goa’uld larvae.”

“So, in that sense, Oberon is right?” Hammond said.  “This Keshefnet could become a threat.” 

“Keshefnet has always been a bit player up till now,” Daniel Jackson said.  “She disappeared off the radar completely three hundred years ago.  But now, with the rest of the System Lords out of the way, she could become a major problem.”

“For us, as well as the Tok’Ra, sir,” Carter said.   “Particularly if Baal and Anubis do wipe each other out.  That will open the floor for someone like Keshefnet to step in.  Power doesn’t like a vacuum.”

“I second Major Carter’s assessment, General Hammond,” Teal’c said, with a half-bow toward her.  “Keshefnet is well placed to take her place, now that we have cleared her path for her.”

“You think we should mount an attack before that happens?”  Hammond asked.

“Indeed.”

“I think we should notify our allies, sir,” Carter said.  “We could mount a joint assault on the garden, if needed.  Knock Keshefnet out before she becomes a problem.”

“The gate address?”

Carter shook her head.  “Sorry, sir.  We were captured by Keshefnet’s Jaffa, and taken there through the Stargate.  None of us saw the address they dialled.”

“Except Jack,” Daniel sighed.   

Hammond turned back to the monitors to look at Jack O’Neill.

The strange struggle had stopped.  Oberon was still sitting at the table, hands linked by the chain.  The over-head light cast harsh shadows over the heavy lines of O’Neill’s face.  He was sitting, waiting patiently, as motionless as a stopped clock.

“A pre-emptive strike,” Hammond said. 

“Yes, sir.  If we can get the address out of this Oberon, we could hit Keshefnet with everything we’ve got.”

“But if we do,” Hammond said, “we could be giving this Oberon exactly what he wants… No.  I'm not inclined to take the word of a Goa'uld.  Our priority is getting O'Neill back. 

"Yes, sir." 

"We'll wait for the Tok'Ra," Hammond decided.  "Keshefnet is a problem for another day.” 

* * *

 

I could see the little red dot on the video camera in the corner.  I could hear a regular hissing sound in the small room.  The ceiling was a lattice of tubing and pipes, sending air into the room, and through the whole base.  Once I had noticed it, Jack noticed it too, and then there was nothing to do but sit and try to ignore the sound.

After a few minutes, it sounded like a dentist’s drill, and there was nothing to do but listen to it.

 _And now?_ I asked Jack.

_Now, we wait._

He turned his wrists in the handcuffs, testing them.  He was riveted to the table, literally.  The chain between his wrists ran through a steel loop that was riveted to the top of the table, and the table itself was bolted to the floor.

_You convinced me to come here.  You said I would be safe here!_

_You should have let me tell them the truth!_

_I can’t!_ I said.  I knotted his left fist on the table, frustrated and afraid. 

He raised his right hand, and cupped it over mine.   _These are my people,_ he said.  I _trust them._

_Your people have spent years, and lives, and billions of dollars, wiping out my kind!  They know I am a Goa’uld!  Why  would they help me, if they knew what you know?  They are the enemy of the Goa’uld._

_We’re also the ally of the Tok’Ra,_ Jack pointed out.  

_Yes.  The Tok’Ra, who you hate._

_That’s beside the point._

_They’re going to extract me from you_ , I said.  _And they’re going to kill me.  I should not have listened to you._ _Hammond_ _does not believe us._

_He will._

_He does not.  
_

_He will.  Trust me.  I won't let any harm come to you!  I said I would help you, and I will._

But there was nothing to do but wait.  Alone, deep underground, and my fate was out of my hands.  I could talk to them; I could convince them; I could explain to them – but not sitting here.  I wanted to get up, rail and shout and scream, but I could not.  We could only wait.

* * *

 

“Unauthorised off-world activation,” Walter’s voice rang over the loudspeakers.  “IDC of the Tok’Ra!”

“Open the Iris,” Hammond ordered.

He turned and trotted heavily out of the Control Room, and Carter followed him down the stairs.   By the time they were down the stairs,  the Iris was open, and the wormhole was rippling above them.

Three figures stepped out of the shimmering surface.  They paused on the top of the ramp, and then walked down to meet the Taur’i.  They all wore the soft camel-coloured uniform of the Tok’Ra.

“Dad!” Carter stepped forward.

“Sam!”  Her father folded her into his arms.  She hugged them both, her dad and his symbiote, glad for their support.  She could feel the rough fuzz of his jacket against her cheek.  He let her go.

“George,” Jacob Carter said to Hammond.  “I’d like to introduce Malek, of the Tok’Ra High Council.  And Morpeth.”

“Welcome to Earth,” Hammond greeted the others.  “And to the SGC.”

“General,” Malek said, with a restrained bow.  His hair curled over his brow in a Roman haircut.  His eyes wore his usual expression of polite concentration.

“It is an honour to meet you face-to-face, General Hammond,” the blond young man at Malek’s side said, with a bow.  He didn’t use the harsh metallic voice of the Tok’Ra, which meant the host was speaking.

Usually, a host that did all the talking was a sign that the host was the stronger personality in their blending.  The Tok’Ra did not approve of such a relationship, but didn’t prevent it.  _“It’s like a marriage with a big age difference,”_ Jacob Carter had explained to Sam, as if he didn’t know about her unconsummated attraction to Jack O’Neill.  _“People talk, but not to your face."_

“We’re glad you could come at such short notice,” Hammond said.

“Our alliance is fragile, but we are glad to help our friends,” Malek said.

“And of course, this is Jack,” Jacob said.  “Malek and I came as soon as we heard the message.”

 “The Goa’uld is a son of Apophis, like Klorel?”  Malek asked.

“So he says,” Hammond said.  “But this one _claims_ he has O’Neill’s consent.  He _claims_ that he is too young to control Colonel O’Neill’s body fully.”

“An incomplete blending?” Selmak said.  

“So he _says.”_

“I find that very unlikely,” Malek said.  “Incomplete blendings die, invariably.  The struggle for control between the host and the symbiote results in the deaths of both.  In the days before the introduction of the Jaffa race, fifty percent of prim’tah failed this way.”

“Unless Colonel O’Neill willingly consented,” Jacob said.  

Malek’s sombre face rumpled in a frown.   “I find that even more unlikely,” Malek said.  “He is no admirer of the Goa’uld.”

 _“That’s_ putting it mildly,” Jacob said.  “Why on _earth_ would Jack be _helping_ a Goa’uld?”

“That’s why we asked for your help,” Hammond said.

“You will have it,” Malek said.  “And then you will have our help in extracting him from O’Neill.  _When_ it turns out that this son of Apophis is lying.” 

* * *

 

We were still sitting tight in the interrogation room, still cuffed to the table, when the  Tok’Ra arrived. 

There were three of them, and I could feel what they were as soon as they walked into the room.  They were the first of my own species that I had ever met, apart from my enemy Keshefnet.  The two eldest Tok'Ra sat down on the other side of the table; the youngest stood against the door.

“You are Oberon,” the eldest of them said.

“I am Oberon,” I said.

 _That’s Carter’s dad, and his symbiote Selmak,_ Jack said. _The other is Malek.  He can be a stuffed shirt, but at least he’s not as bad as some of them.  You can at least_ talk _to these two.  So far, so good._

_The third one?_

_Let’s just call him FNG,_ Jack suggested.  _The Fucking New Guy._   He still didn’t like the Tok’Ra.

“We are the Tok’Ra," Selmak said.  

“We understand you wish to join us,” said Malek. 

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“No.  I do not wish to join you.  I want to destroy the System Lords.”

“Then our interests coincide.”

“Yes, they do.”

“Then perhaps you _should_ join us?”

“I don’t want to join you.  I want _you_ to join _me!_   Help me kill Keshefnet!  Help me take her garden from her!”

“Why do you want her garden?”

“I just want it.”

“Why?”

“Why does a Goa’uld need a reason?” I snapped, and felt the anger sear in my eyes.  “I _want_ it!  It’s _mine!_  It’s irrelevant why I want it.  I want it.”

“And it’s irrelevant to us what you want,” Malek said, coldly.  “We want O’Neill back, first.  If you join us, we will find you a new host.  On condition that you leave O'Neill first.”

“I _want_ to leave Jack!” I said.  “He is not a suitable host.  His body does not please me.  As soon as I have what I want, I will withdraw from him.”

“So you say.”

“I helped SG1 escape, didn’t I?”  I asked.  “I didn't have to do that.  Jack consented to a deal.  As soon as we’ve killed Keshefnet, I’ll withdraw from him." 

"We want you to withdraw from Jack O'Neill now.  Then we will think about going after Keshefnet."

"No," I said.  "I alone know where Keshefnet's garden is.  Keshefnet first.  Then I will withdraw.  That is the deal I made with Jack." 

"As long as you're inside O'Neill, there is no deal." 

"My deal is with Jack, not with you.  I have no interest in joining the Tok'Ra.  You have my word, as the child of Apophis, that as soon as I have what I want, I will leave Jack no worse for wear.  I do not want him.  He _certainly_ does not want me."

"You say you have a deal with Jack?" Selmak asked. 

"We do."

"Then you should have no objections to letting him speak." 

 _Over to you._    I surrendered control to Jack.  He cleared his throat.  

“It’s the truth, Jacob.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.  Oberon hates Keshefnet.  Hates all the System Lords, but especially Keshefnet.” 

“Why?”

 _Tell them nothing,_ I said.

_Shut up and let me talk._

"You really have a deal?" Selmak asked. 

"Yeah, we really have a deal.  Keshefnet's got thousands of snakes in that garden, and they sure as _hell_ aren't like Oberon.  Oberon hates Keshefnet, and wants to kill her.  SG1 turning up when we did gave him the chance." 

Malek turned to look at FNG.  He hadn't moved from his place, but he raised one eyebrow, and shook his head. 

“Listen to me!" Jack said.  "Oberon’s Jaffa was one of Apophis’s Jaffa, same time as Teal'c.  Hell, Teal'c probably knew the guy.  I reckon he must have been one of those Jaffa who were trying to talk to their own symbiotes during Kel’no’reem, because when Keshefnet pulled Oberon out of him, Oberon took it kinda personally.  He's pissed, and now he wants payback.” 

“Ultimately, we don't care about Keshefnet," Malek said.  “We are here to get you out of O'Neill.”

“I _am_ Jack O’Neill!”  Jack said, offended. 

“We don’t believe you,” said Malek.

“Well, hell!"  Jack shouted.  "What can I say to convince you?”

“Nothing,” Malek said.  “Nothing at all.  It's not us you have to convince.  It's him." He turned his head, and looked at the young man standing by the door. 

"What do you think?" Selmak asked the young man. 

The young man stepped forward, and his head dipped.  The symbiote was taking control for the first time.  He raised his head, and I saw the flash of fire as he looked me in the eyes. 

"I know O'Neill better than anyone else in this room.  And there is _no_ circumstance that I can think of where he would ever, _ever_ consent to working together with a Goa'uld.  He would sooner die than consent to hosting again." 

I grabbed Jack's head.  "Who the hell do you think you are?"  I demanded. "You think you know my companion better than I do." 

"Yes," he said.  “My name is Kanan.”

_Kanan!  
_

I felt Jack’s rage _explode._ Kanan!  Kanan, Jack’s first symbiote!  Kanan, who had betrayed him and abandoned him and _left_ him!  _Kanan,_ who had run away and left him in Baal's hands to save his own skin!  Jack's anger blew out of my control like a volcano blowing out a mountain.  He leaped to his feet and I felt the fire leap up in his eyes.

_“You’re dead!"_

“He survived, Jack,” Selmak said.  “He managed to get to the river, and swam until he could find a temporary host.”

“You left me there!”  Jack shouted at Kanan.  “You fucking _left_ me there!”  He wrenched at the chain that bound him to the table. 

 _Jack!_   I shouted, but his rage was soaring on a huge ash cloud into the sky.   Jack was in a fury, and suddenly I was in it with him.  This was Kanan, my slimy predecessor!  This was _Kanan,_ who had treated _MY JACK_ with such disregard!  I felt my rage rise to match Jack's.  Suddenly, I wanted to smash Kanan’s fat face in as much as Jack did! 

“You poxy slimy son-of-a-bitch!”  He yanked at the chain again, and this time I overrode all the safety mechanisms that prevented primate muscles from breaking human bones.  His full power hit the steel; the chain snapped.

All three Tok'Ra were standing now, alarmed by Jack's rage.  Kanan realized that Jack was free, and coming for him, and he threw himself backward.  Jack roared at him, and launched himself over the table. 

“Jack!” Jacob shouted into Jack’s face, but Jack shoved him aside.  Kanan was scrambling for the door, and Jack went after him into the corridor, and now there was nothing standing between Kanan and Jack’s rage.  Jack grabbed Kanan by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

“You left me there!”

Kanan didn’t reply.  He _couldn’t,_ because Jack’s hands were squeezing around his throat.

_Jack!  Stop!_

“Jack!”  Jacob shouted.

 _Jack!  You’re killing the host!_ I tried to pull him up, but I couldn’t.  So I did the next best thing – I grabbed his left hand, and used it to pull Jack’s right little finger back, hard.  He let go of Kanan with a squawk. 

The SGC guards were coming around the corner.  Jack picked Kanan up and threw him bodily at the oncoming guards.  The flying Tok’Ra crashed into the sentries and they all fell together in a heap of confusion and weapons.  "You left me there!" Jack roared at Kanan.   "You left me there, and do you know what Baal did to me?  Over, and over, and over, and _over,_ for _days?_ Where were _you,_ Kanan?  _Where were you?"_

 _“O’Neill!_   What in _tarnation’s_ name is going on here?”  blared a voice behind us.

Jack spun around, and it was General Hammond.  The General’s face was purple. 

Jack snapped up to attention. 

He was just in time to see Teal’c pop up behind Hammond with a Zat.  “Oh, _cra– !”_  

* * *

 

In the Infirmary, Kanan and his host Morpeth were sitting on the bed, holding his throat.  All three Tok’Ra were in the Infirmary, along with SG1 and Hammond.  “He nearly killed my host!” Kanan snarled, pushing Dr Fraiser's hands aside.

“Yes, we know,” Selmak said. 

“You didn’t tell us Kanan was alive!” Carter accused Malek.

“No, we did not,” Malek said.  “We did not think it would be wise.  For the same reason that we have never sent Anise back to Earth.  We thought that bringing Kanan and O’Neill together would endanger our alliance with the Tau’ri.”

“We thought the need outweighed the risk, today,” Selmak said.

“Well, it was worth it!” Kanan snapped, and the flame glowed in his eyes.  His voice was a snarl; anger as well as a damaged larynx.  “You _saw_ that strength!  That was a Goa’uld strength!  An incomplete blending, indeed!”

“Is there any way that was Jack, and not Oberon?” Carter asked. 

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Kanan snarled.  “They’re both swine.  Knuckle-dragging aggressive militaristic...”

“Enough,” Malek said.  He didn’t raise his voice, but Kanan shut up instantly.

“We can see the problem you have here, General Hammond,” Selmak said.  “We will return through the Stargate immediately.  We will need to have the extraction machine brought to the Stargate by ship, but we’ll be back tomorrow, and then we can extract Oberon.”

“We will have O’Neill restored to you, no worse for his experiences,” Malek promised.

“Is there anything we can do for him tonight?” Hammond asked.

Selmak dipped his head, and Jacob came back.   “Just keep him comfortable,” he said.  “There’s no reason for either of them to suffer any more than they have to.  Just keep them both comfortable until tomorrow.” 

 

* * *

The next thing I knew, I was back inside Jack’s eyes.  I was looking up into a woman’s face, leaning down over me.  She had big brown eyes, and neat little lips, and a white coat that complimented both.

 _Dr Fraiser,_ Jack said.  _A friend._  Usually a friend with a needle full of vaccinations he didn’t want, but still a friend.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“That’s the _second_ time you’ve asked me that question,” she said, raising her brows.

 _Glad you could join us,_ Jack said, drily.  _We’re in Observation Room One._

He sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. By the feel of his ribs, I guessed that someone had put a boot in a few times while we were out.  But at least the towering uncontrolled rage had gone.  

Frasier raised a little light, and shone it in through his eyes.  Lights flashed red across Jack’s retinas, and I wondered if she was looking to see _me._   Jack wanted to wince away from the bright needle of light, and I held him still. 

 “Jack says we’re in Observation Room One.” 

"You are." 

“Why am I here?”

“Well, since we’ve already established that handcuffs won’t hold you, we’ve decided you may as well stay here overnight.  You’re a little stronger than we expected.”

 “Jack is strong,” I said.  “I just let him over-ride the usual safety-limits.”

“Safety limits?”

“Humans have natural limits on their own strength, so that they don’t hurt themselves.  I just over-rode them all, and let him go full-on angry ape.”

“Well, we would _appreciate_ it if you didn’t do that again,” Frasier said.  “But if you do, please be advised that tonight there are two sentries with Zats outside your door who have orders to zap you again if you do.”  She put the little light back into her white coat.

“I will be as good as gold, Doctor,” I agreed.

“Is there anything you want?” she asked.

“Cake,” said Jack, taking control quickly.  “I could _murder_ a chocolate cake right now.”

I grabbed control back from him.  “I’m sorry, Doctor.  Cake has too much sugar.”  He wasn’t getting any cake ever, if I had any say.  “No cake.”

 _I want cake,_ he said, mutinously.  

“It’s not good for you.”

 _Tuesdays are chocolate cake day in the canteen…_ He sent me a mental image of what a chocolate cake looked like. 

I tried to ignore him.  Fraiser was looking at me with worry hiding in her eyes, as if she was wondering if I was mad.  I tried to ignore Jack’s demand for cake.

“I need clean clothes,” I said to Fraiser.  “Civilian if possible?  And cake and paper.  Thick black felt-tipped cakes.  Wait, what?  No.  I mean, a cake to write with.  felt-tipped pens and cake.  Jack, what are you _doing?_   How are you doing that?”

_I want cake.  
_

“I need paper and cake.  To cake with… you know…”  I used our left hand to make a writing gesture.  “Cake.  I mean, paper and cake.  To cake with.  Oh, for God’s sake, stop _doing_ that!  I’m trying to hold a _cake_ here!”

_Cake, cake, cake._

I didn’t know how he was doing it.  I had control of his speech centres, but somehow he was leaning against his own vocubulary so that all his nouns bulged out in the direction of cake.  I didn’t even know he could do that.  “Well, fine,” I snapped.  “Have cake, then!  Get fat.  I don’t care.”

Fraiser was smiling.  “Well, since it’s so important, I will send someone with cake,” she promised.

“Also pens and paper,” I said. 

“I’ll see what I can do," Fraiser said. 

"Good." 

"Good night, Oberon."

"Good night, Doctor." 

She left us, going out and closing the door behind her.

I asked Jack to look around.  He obliged happily, satisfied now that he had got his own way.

We were in a long well-lit room, with creamy walls and tiles,  and flourescent lights.  There was a door on each end, and a large mirror that Jack identified as a two-way mirror.  It was furnished with a few chairs, a book-case, and the bed.  The room had a strip of power sockets against the wall – locked with plastic caps.  It could be changed into a hospital ward, I guessed. 

 _We have a full hospital here,_ Jack said, proud of his base.  _We can take heavy combat casualties here, an_ _d nobody outside the Mountain would ever know._

_Have you ever needed it?_

_A few times,_ he said.  _Not often.  We win more than we lose._

I asked him to push the bed to the head of the room facing the door, and then we sat on it.  We were left alone.  A clock on the wall ticked loudly.  It was late, Earth-time.  Most of the base personnel must have gone home by now.  Jack wanted to go home, but he knew he was not going anywhere tonight.  

I wondered where the Tok’Ra were tonight.  I wondered if they would try to extract me tomorrow.  I wondered if it would _hurt._

 _The Tok’Ra have a machine,_ Jack said.  I felt him shiver at a flickering memory of the Sarcophagus.

_They don’t trust us._

_I wouldn’t trust us either,_ he said, and I knew it was the truth.  _They know we’re lying.  There are too many holes in our story._

_They know there is something we’re not telling them._

_Let me tell them the truth,_   he asked.  

 _No,_ I said. 

_Things are spinning out of my control.  It's time to tell the truth.  
_

_They’ll tell the Tok’Ra.  And you don’t trust the Tok’Ra either._

_You’re fighting for your life here_ , he said. _You must trust someone eventually! The Tok'Ra are coming with their machine, and then it will be too late.  
_

* * *

 

 


	3. Coronation

The next morning, Samantha Carter went straight to the gallery that looked through the two-way mirror into Observation Room One.  She found SG1 and Dr Fraiser there, with General Hammond, staring in silence. 

 For a second, she panicked.  Her heart leaped into her mouth.  He was injured; he was dead; he had escaped. 

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

 They turned to face her.   “Sam!” Daniel said.  “You should see this!” 

Her heart settled at the excited tone in Daniel's voice.  He wouldn't sound so excited if O'Neill was dead, injured, escaped.  She walked over to join them, and looked through the window.

 Jack O’Neill was sprawled on his face on the bed, with his head half under his pillow.  For a moment, her heart was in her mouth, until she heard a snore through the speakers.  He was asleep. 

 “Oh, that’s…”

 And then she did a double-take when she noticed the rest of the room.  Every wall was covered with columns of black text. 

“Whoa,” Carter said, blinking.  Yes, _every_ wall, every inch from corner to corner was covered in columns of dense black text.  Even the floor showed what looked like a map.  O'Neill had pushed the bed and furniture to the head of the room, leaving the whole linoleum floor to be drawn on.  

“He kept himself busy last night,” Fraiser said.  

“If nothing else,” Daniel said, “I suppose it does prove that he’s Goa’uld."

“But why on the walls?” Hammond said.

“Writing on the walls seems to be something that the Goa’uld just _do,”_ Daniel said.  “They write all over their palaces, their ships, their temples… They seem to have a Thing for walls.”

“The Tok’Ra don’t write on the walls,” Hammond complained.

“The Tok’Ra decorate nothing,” Tealc observed.  “The difference is remarkable.”

“And nobody stopped him last night?” Hammond asked.

“No, sir,” Fraiser said, shaking her head.  “The guards had orders to intervene only if he tried to get out.  The sentries said he spent eight hours writing it all, and then to sleep.”

“The Goa’uld do not sleep,” Teal’c said.

“Teal’c is right,” Carter said.  “I’ve never heard of a Goa’uld sleeping before.”

“What about the hosts?”

“Well, Dad says he sleeps for a few REM cycles now and then, but Selmak can over-ride his normal sleep paralysis and keep going.  The Goa'uld don’t sleep.”

 _“That_ one is.”

They all looked at the man on the bed.  O'Neill was lying on his stomach with his face buried _under_ his pillow, and he was snoring like a strangled camel. As if he could hear them through the bullet-proof glass, he moved and  coughed.  A moment later, the strangled-camel came back.

“I think I’d also be tired if I spent eight hours doing _that,”_ Daniel said.  He turned his head against the window,  trying to read the writing on the wall, until his glasses-frame knocked the glass.

“Dr Jackson?”  Hammond asked.

“Uh, well, from what I can see from here, the script appears to be Egyptian Demotic.  Which is to say, it’s the third language on the Rosetta Stone. That's the script that Leonard Nimoy rather memorably mispronounced as ‘Demonic’ through a whole documentary back in the '90s and never mind you’re not interested in Leonard Nimoy.  The thing is, Demotic is like cursive version of hieroglyphics.  It’s the symbiote’s handwriting.”

“Can you translate it?”

“Not from here,” Daniel said.  “I want to get in there and take pictures.  But not when they’re in there, if you don’t mind.”

“Whatever it is, we want to see it,” Hammond said. 

“I’d like to get some X-rays of Colonel O’Neill this morning,” Fraiser said. “I want to see how Oberon is lying, so we’re ready when the Tok’Ra come back with their extraction equipment.  Maybe, while Jack is in the infirmary…”

“… I can sneak in and take high resolution pictures,” Daniel agreed.  “That’ll work.”

“Then I’ll go back to the Infirmary and prepare the X-Ray room.  General, may I have  guards standing by?"  Fraiser asked.

"I'll call a guard detail," Hammond said, reaching for the phone.  "No Goa’uld is walking around my base without an armed escort."

"Especially considering what _this_ one did to the Tok'Ra yesterday," Fraiser agreed.  “Sam, will you wake the Colonel, and tell him he has a doctor’s appointment this morning?  In, um, twenty minutes?”

“I’ll do that.”

She turned, and left the room.

Observation One was next door.  Carter walked to the other door and nodded to the sentry.  He ran his ID card through the lock on the door.  The bolts retracted with a thunk, and she turned the handle and pushed the heavy steel door.  It swung silently on maximum-security steel hinges.

She walked in.  The bolts clunked behind her.  She glanced at her own reflection in the mirror, and then crossed the room to the bed.  The dense scribbling on the walls ran all the way around the room. Under her left boot, she saw a squiggly line, with the notation 'River of Honey' in O'Neill's handwriting.  Under her right boot was the military map symbol for an artillery piece. 

“Colonel?” she said.

She waited for a response, but all she got was a snore.  She approached the bed, very aware of the watchers behind the mirror.

"Colonel?"

She stooped over the bed, and almost shrieked as his eyes flipped open wide. 

"Do not wake him,” Oberon spoke. 

"Is he asleep?" 

 “I promised him I would let him sleep as long as he wished, as soon as we were in a safe place.”  The Goa'uld's eyes were open, staring coldly up from the pillow, but the rest of O'Neill did not move.  "Now go away.  I will let him sleep.”

"Actually, we would like you to get up now.  We would like to take an X-Ray of you this morning."

"Why?" 

"Well, in case you haven’t noticed, your host is not a young man, and we'd like to know how you're affecting _him._ We'd like to check up on his health." _  
_

The Goa'uld frowned.  "If it is for his own good, I will wake him."

Even as she watched, Jack returned.  His face sagged into sleepy wrinkles.  He blinked a few times, rolled his face up from the warm pillow. and his brows creased into a sleepy frown.

 _“Mmgh,_ ” he mumbled, and rolled his face up out of his pillow.  “Carter.  What’re you doing here?”

"Sir," she said.  "Time to get up, sir.  It’s breakfast time, and then we’d like to take you to the Infirmary, and get a few X-Rays done."

"Er, okay.”  He rolled onto his back and sat up, and blinked with surprise.   “Hey,” he said.  “It doesn’t hurt.”

“What doesn’t hurt?”

“Anything,” he said.  “My back.  My knees.  Nothing hurts.”

“Does it _usually_ hurt?”

“Carter, how many bones have I broken?  Everything hurts."  He raised both hands, flexing his fingers. 

"Hey!  Sir!  What did you do to your nails?" 

All the fingers of his left hand were black.  He must have drawn on them with the same black marker he used on the walls.  The effect was hideous. 

"I painted them."  He turned the hand over, looking at his nails.  "They don't look as good as I thought they would." 

"But sir, why?" 

"Oberon doesn't have my whole body, only my left hand.  He wanted his hand to look different."   

"I see," Carter said.  She had never heard of a Goa'uld differentiating between their host and themselves before.  Even Selmak didn't bother.  "You know, you should probably use nail polish instead.  It'll look better." 

He narrowed his eyes.  "What, are you offering, Carter?  We're lending each other make-up, now?" 

"You should know better, sir.  When do I ever wear nail polish?" Carter asked. 

For some reason, O'Neill's face jumped, as if Oberon was about to say something, but changed his mind. "No.  You're more likely to wear motorcycle oil, Carter." 

"Well, if you cooperate with Doctor Fraiser, maybe she'll lend you some?" 

“You got a deal.  But first, I need a shave, and a shower.  I stink like a _mastage._   Give me five?”

“You’ve got twenty, sir,” she said.  “You’re not exactly on duty this morning.”

“I’d rather be fishing,” he said, but he got up off the bed, and went into the bathroom.

* * *

 

 _I let you sleep as long as I could,_ I said to Jack. 

 _I know,_ he said. 

_You're still tired._

_I've been tired before, I'll survive._

We had a bathroom attached to Observation One, with what seemed like privacy, but probably wasn’t.  Jack walked into the bathroom, and slid the door closed behind us.

Jack stripped off naked, and had a shower.  I tensed up, expecting a long uncomfortable exploration of his body,  but to my surprise he was very quick about it.  He soaped and rinsed off in less than two minutes, so quickly I barely had time to notice what his body felt like naked.

“Military habits,” he said aloud, toweling off so vigorously that his skin stung.  “Even in the Chair Force.” 

_I am grateful._

He pulled on clean underpants and trousers, and ran a tube of deodorant under his arms.  He opened a vinyl bag and took out his razor.  It was an old-fashioned safety-razor, double-edged.  I looked at it, doubtfully.

  _You know, there is a better way of removing unwanted hair.  I could adjust a few of your hormones, if you like..._

_You leave my hormones alone!  I’m a man, I like having a beard!_

He ran some water into the basin, wet his cheeks with his hands.  There was a can of lather on the shelf, and he picked it up and looked at himself in the mirror.

His face!

I remembered the moment I jumped into him.  His eyes had been wide, his teeth bared in terror – and I’d leaped in through his throat, and made his nightmare real.

I yanked him back so hard he staggered.  _No! NO!_

“Whoa!”  He staggered back and caught himself against the toilet seat.   “Take it easy!”

“Colonel?” a female voice called through the door.

“It’s okay, just talking to Oberon,” he yelled.   _Hey, hey, hey, take it easy!_

He tugged at his neck, trying to raise his head, but I couldn’t let him have it.  I dragged his head down, anchoring his chin to his chest. He lowered himself to sit on the toilet lid instead.  He could feel the nausea inside; nausea I was creating.  He could feel his own heart pounding, but he ignored it. 

“It’s all right.”  

_It’s not all right!_

“It’s just my face!  Look at me!” 

He stood up.  He straightened his back, trying to make me look in the mirror, but I pulled his head around to the left.

_No, I can’t._

“Yes, you can.  This is my face.”  His head was winched tightly to the left, but he raised his right hand and ran his fingers over his face.  I could feel the harsh stubble on his cheeks. 

“Feel that?  This my face.  I shave this face every morning.  I kissed my son with this face.  Look at my face with _my_ memories.”

He tugged at his neck again, asking for his head, and I gave it to him.  He raised his gaze back to the mirror, and I looked. 

I couldn’t see _anything_ of myself in him.  He didn’t fit – that wasn’t _me_.  His eyes were deep brown, like chocolate, deep set under heavy brows.  His bones were broad, and his cheeks were covered with beard.  _That’s not me,_ I said.  _  
_

“Of course it’s not you,” he said.  “You’re not me, you’re just _inside_ me.”

 _I’m just inside you,_ I said.  _This body isn’t who I am.  You don’t reflect who I am inside.  This body is your body._

He bent to the floor, and picked up the razor.  He squortzed lather from the can into his palm, and spread it over his face from ear to ear.  He wet the razor, and started scraping  away at his cheek, roughly, as if he genuinely didn't care about the condition of his skin.

 _This body isn’t who I am,_ I recited, reassuring myself. _This body is just my outer shell.  It’s just the body I walk around in.  It's not me._

He went on shaving.  “Hey,” he said, through the straggly white beard of lather.  “Why don’t you do the eye thing?  _That’s_ you."

_The eye thing?_

“Yeah, do the eye thing.”

_Are you sure?_

“Go on.  I want to see what _you_ look like.  Do the eye thing.”

I gathered my strength.  I reached down for my feelings, and found the one thing that made us both angry: Kanan.  I touched his memories of Kanan, and I felt his testosterone leap, and my own anger with it.

The heat seared his eyes, prickling against his eyelashes.  His sclera glowed, and his brown irises were lit up to a garish orange. He was startled by how _wrong_ it looked, on his own face.  For a second his heart rate jumped with revulsion, and then he forced the revulsion down again. 

“There!” he said.  _“_ That’s you, not this,” he waggled the razor at his own face.  “This face is temporary, and that’s what matters.  We kill Keshefnet, then you never need to see me again.”

He went on shaving.  He ran the razor over and between the heavy male lines of his face, rapidly stripping off lather and beard together.

_If the Tok’Ra don’t extract me first.  They know there’s something we’re not telling them.  
_

“Then let me tell them.”   

_No!_

“They’re not the System Lords.  You have nothing to fear from them.”

 _They’re slimy,_ I said.  _And you don’t trust them either._

“Nope, but I trust them a whole lot more than I trust the System Lords.  Your brothers will try to take the Garden from you, unless you’re strong.” 

He pulled a face, shaving the tight corner around his mouth. Since he couldn’t talk, he shifted to internal speech.  _The Tok’Ra can protect you_ , he said.

_I don’t need them.  
_

“No, but they need you,” he said.  He rinsed his razor off in the warm water, and grinned at me in the mirror.  “Even if _they_ don’t know it yet.  They need you a _lot_ more than you need them."  

_I’ll think about it._

"There’s safety in being indispensable.”

There was something reassuring about speaking to him in the mirror.  It felt as if I was not really inside him.  I could distance myself from his ill-fitting body, talking to him as if he was someone else.

“Yeah, you think about it.  But don’t take too long.  This is a war.  One way or another, all wars end.”

* * *

 

Carter waited in Observation One, while the shower went on, and off again.  When ONeill came out of the bathroom, he at least looked more like himself.  Washed, shaved, and presentable - at least until Carter noticed the hideous black marker nails on his left hand. 

Oberon, not O'Neill, she reminded herself.  She tried to focus on that fact.  That was not O'Neill, she told herself.  That was a parasitic Thing walking around O'Neill's body.  She owed it to O'Neill to remember that Oberon was not him. She banged on the door for the guards, and Oberon allowed them to put hand-cuffs on him.  They went through the corridors to the Infirmary. 

 All through the corridors, the base was quiet.  Personnel stepped out of their way against the walls as they passed.To Carter, it seemed that the whole base was holding its breath.

Everyone knew O'Neill.  Everyone liked O'Neill.  He had led the very first mission through the Stargate, and since then he had led them to one victory after another.  His decisions had laid down the SOPs for every SG team that came after him.  He wasn't just an SG officer, he was a walking example of how to _be_ an SG officer. He wasn't only the David Stirling of the SGC; he was fast becoming their Nelson...

And now, everyone knew that there was a Goa’uld inside him. Everyone remembered the horrible death of Kowalski.  The walk to the Infirmary was like escorting a funeral. 

The X-ray room was a few doors down from the Infirmary, and shielded in lead. In the X-Ray room, Fraiser was waiting with the radiographer.  Oberon allowed Fraiser to arrange him on the table, and put the lead blanket over his lap, and then Fraiser and Carter retreated to the operator's room. 

The armed guards tried to stand like book-ends by the door, until Carter yelled at them to get the hell away from the radiation, and they left the room altogether. 

"Doc?" Oberon said, in O'Neill's voice.   Carter and Fraiser could see him through the narrow window into the X-ray room.  He was lying still, his grey head pillowed, his eyes closed.  The cold grey light in the X-ray room made him look tired and ill.  "Carter said if I play ball, I can borrow a bottle of nail polish."

Fraiser’s eyebrows rose, and she pursed her lips.  _“Nail_ polish?” 

 “Red, by choice.  Come on, Doc.  Your make-up is always spot-on.  You must have nail polish around here.” 

 Fraiser turned her eyes toward Carter, who pursed her lips, and shrugged her shoulders.  She didn’t know either. 

 “I have some red,” Fraiser said.  "But I'll trade you for it, Colonel." 

"Trade?" 

"Nail polish for blood-work." 

"Ah, come on!" 

"Nail polish for blood-work, take it or leave it, Colonel." 

O'Neill inhaled, but it was Oberon who spoke. 

"You drive a hard bargain, Doctor Fraiser."

"You haven't played Monopoly with me yet, Oberon." Fraiser said, lightly. 

"Very well.  You have a deal.  Nail polish for blood-work."

"Please don't move, Colonel," said the radiographer.   
  
O'Neill inhaled, and lay still.   _Zac-zac-zac,_ went the X-Ray machine, echoing against the concrete walls. 

 "That's it, all done," the radiographer reported.  "I'll push them through to your monitor asap, Doc."

 "Good, thank you.  Jack!  We're all done here!"  Fraiser called.  “You can get up now.” Carter followed her through the door back into the X-ray room. 

He was already sitting up, casting the lead apron aside. 

"Now, your bloodwork," Fraiser said.  She walked out of the X-ray room.   O'Neill followed, and the guards took up their trail. 

The Infirmary was just a few yards away down another of the Base’s endless concrete corridors.  The two airmen took up their places at the door, watching.  O'Neill sat down in a chair without being asked.  He let Fraiser roll up his sleeve, dab his elbow with alcohol, strap a cord around his arm, and draw a blood sample out of a vein into a bottle.  And then another.  And another.  She filled four bottles, and O'Neill didn't complain, for once.  He really _wanted_ that nail-polish, Carter thought, although she couldn't imagine why. 

After the fourth bottle, Fraiser discarded the needle, and sent the bottles of blood away with one of her assistants, and then pulled out a desk drawer.

She pulled out a little bottle and put it down.  "There we go.  Cherry-red.  As promised." 

"Ah, _ha!"_ O'Neill said.

He sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs, and shook the bottle up and down briskly in his hand with the attitude of a man who actually knew about the ball-bearing inside. The movement was difficult, because his hands were still cuffed together.  When he was satisfied, he unscrewed the bottle, and drew out the cap.  Very gently, he applied a bead of red to the nail of his left index finger.  

 "This will look better than the black marker... You'll like this, I promise." 

It took Carter a moment to realize he was speaking aloud to Oberon. 

He'd clearly never applied nail polish before, because he was lumping it on over the black marker, and over his own cuticles.  He was slapping it on as if it was marine paint.  He slopped more red marine paint on his index finger, and then his middle finger.   He shifted to his ring finger, stooping over his own hands with breathless concentration, but his concentration didn't help, because his ring finger was as ragged as the rest. 

"Sir, you're doing a _terrible_ job," Carter said.   

"Well, hello, Major? I've never _done_ it before." 

"I don't know why you've doing it now." 

"Because Oberon will like it." 

"Right." 

"You heard that your Dad gave up coffee because Selmak doesn't like the taste?" he asked. 

"Yes."

"Well, this is like that."

 Jack did his little finger.  Then he dipped the little brush again, and started on his thumb.  Far too thick and lumpy, Carter saw.  He had not yet learned that nail polish that was applied too thickly chipped off in thick chunks too. 

"There we go," he said aloud, and then, "Yeah, see, I _told_ you you'd like it.  You're welcome." 

"What about your right hand?" Carter asked. 

"I'm not doing my right hand, Carter.  Only the left.  This is Oberon's hand, not mine.  _Now,_ if I accidentally-on-purpose punch any more Tok'Ra, everyone can see I flaming _meant_ it." 

 Carter hid her smile.  “Sir.  What’s it like?” 

 He looked up at her from his fingers.  “You’ve been there, Carter,” he said.  "You tell me." 

 “Well, I know Dad’s experience with Selmak is different from my time with Jolinar.  What’s it like for _you?”_  

“Carter..."  He stared up at the sealing, and clicked his teeth together a few times, thoughtfully.  "You ever had brass go down the back of your shirt?” 

 “I’ve had brass go down the front of my bra.”

His eyes glazed over momentarily, and she realized she had reminded him that she had breasts.  Not that he _needed_ reminding, exactly.  It was just that he already knew she had breasts.  And she knew that he knew, and she _liked_ it, and _that_ was the problem, right there. 

"Yeah.  Um, anyway, it feels kinda like that.  There’s a whole bundle of _wrong,_ bouncing around inside my skin.  Can't say it's a nice feeling.  Right now, I just want it to be over.” 

He screwed the lid back onto the bottle, and nearly undid all his own work bumping the wet nails.  He sat back, looking down at his hand.  

“Jolinar didn't feel like that.  She filled me up.  There was so much of her - so many memories...”

“She isn't …” O'Neill pulled up his head, sharply, like a horse. 

Oberon was back.  Carter could see the difference in his face.  Oberon carried his eyebrows higher, unlike O’Neill, who tended to glower under them.

“You call Jolinar ‘she.’” Oberon rasped.

“She called herself a ‘she.’”

“But she wasn’t a she, was she?  She was a drone.” 

“No, but she respected _my_ feelings.  And I'm a woman.”

Oberon raised O'Neill's hand, examining his nails.  O'Neill had elegant hands, for a man, but they were still a man's hands, big-boned and strong.  The red nails looked very strange on his masculine fingers.

“But ultimately," Oberon said, "it mattered little to Jolinar that you were female.  It does not matter to Keshefnet that her host is female.  Drones are neuter.  It is only queens that insist on female hosts.”

“And sires prefer male hosts,” Carter said.  “Osiris referred to himself as _Lord_ Osiris, even in a female host.”

“Osiris was definitely a sire,” Oberon said.  "And Isis was his queen.  Almost every queen is ruled by a System Lord, sooner or later.  As Amunhet was the queen of Apophis.  As Nephthys was the queen of Seth.”

“As Egeria was the queen of Ra, before she rejected him.”

“The mother of all the Tok’Ra,” Oberon said.  “All of whom are drones?”

“I don't know,” Carter said.

“But Jack says that Egeria never produced a queen daughter,” Oberon said.  “Ultimately, the Tok’Ra _will_ all die out.  The System Lords have never taken the Tok'Ra as a serious threat, because they know they have only to wait.  Jack says only a Tok'Ra queen can change that."

"Jack's right," Carter said. 

"Jack says he met Egeria, once." 

"Yes," Carter said.  "Briefly."  She was about to explain about how they had met Egeria, and returned her to her own people to die with them, but she was interrupted by Dr Fraiser.

“Sam?”  Fraiser was back, leaning around the corner, looking at Carter with a question in her eyes.  “Can I show you something quickly?”

“Yeah, sure, Janet.  Oberon, I’ll be back in a minute…”

She left Oberon, and followed Fraiser across the Infirmary to her light-table.

“Look at this,” Fraiser said.

The first of the X-rays were pinned up against the light so that they could be seen clearly.  Carter leaned closer.  That was O'Neill's skull.  She saw the pale shadows of his face, and his teeth, and a couple of fillings.  And at the back of his neck, another spine, winding like a ribbon around his own.  The symbiote's ribs were as fine as silk.

“Do you see what I see?” Fraiser asked, in a soft voice.  Her eyes were enormous, looking closely at Carter, asking her not to speak too loudly lest Oberon hear, just a few feet away.

Carter wasn’t a radiographer, but she didn’t need to be.  She reached out with her fingers, and traced the line of the Goa’uld’s spine.  It reached barely the length of her hand.

“It’s too small,” she said, as quietly as Fraiser. 

“This symbiote can’t be more than four years old,” Fraiser said.  “Far too young to control a host.”

“Jack was telling the truth…” Carter breathed.  “But … why?”

Carter and Fraiser stared at each other, but neither of them knew the answer.

A siren suddenly blared on the other side of the door.  A voice called out over the loudspeaker, audible even here.  _“Unauthorised off-world activation!”_

"The Tok'Ra are back," Fraiser said. 

 

* * *

 

It was time. 

SG1 met with Hammond around the conference table for one last meeting.  Dr Fraiser sat in her usual seat.  Jack O’Neill’s seat was empty, but nobody sat in it.  In an hour, O’Neill would be back again. 

 “Status report?” Hammond asked. 

"Colonel O'Neill is back in the interrogation room," Carter said.  "Secured properly this time, and under guard." 

 “And the Tok’Ra are setting up their machine on Level 27,” Daniel said.  “Malek says our power system should work with it all right, no jerry-rigging needed.” 

 “Do they know when it’ll be ready?” 

 “Just a few more minutes, sir.”

 “In a few more minutes, we will be rid of Oberon for good,” Hammond said.  He looked satisfied.  

“I am not yet convinced this is the correct path of action, General Hammond,” Teal’c said.  “Colonel O’Neill has cooperated with this Goa’uld willingly.”

 “And if we let them take Oberon, we lose the gate address of Keshefnet’s Garden,” Carter said.  “We'll have no chance of stopping Keshefnet.” 

  “But even if Colonel O’Neill is cooperating,” Hammond said, “we have no idea _why.”_    

 “Oberon says he just wants his Garden,” Carter said. 

“And Colonel O’Neill is going along with it?" Hammond asked.  "I find that very unlikely, Major."

 Fraiser pursed her lips.  “The X-ray is clear, sir.  There is no way that a symbiote so immature can control a fully grown man.” 

"I have viewed the X-rays," Teal'c said.  "And I concur with Doctor Fraiser.

  “Doctor Jackson?  Do the writings on the wall shed any light?”    

 “Well, it’s a manifesto, of sorts.”  Daniel opened his folder in front of him, and then thought better of it.  He moved over to the screen, and picked up the remote.  He started flicking through images.  "Most of it is a garbled mish-mash.  Bits of the Book of the Dead, rants against the System Lords, lots of boasts and threats and rants.  Rather a _lot_ of ranting against the System Lords, actually.  Including against Apophis.  They’ve perverted the natural order, they’re an evolutionary dead end, oppressors never win… And so on, and so on.” 

 “Typical Goa’uld boasting.”

  _“Yes-s-s,_ that’s what I thought, at first.  But then, I found this.”  Daniel clicked rapidly through slides, and stopped on a red circle that had been drawn around a block of text.  This part was written in English.   It was the only part of the whole text that was. 

  _“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but it takes just as much to stand up to your friends,"_ Daniel read aloud.  "I’m sure you recognise where that’s from.” 

 “The Book of the Dead?”

 Daniel pushed his glasses up.  “Oh, come on.  You have to recognise that.  It’s only from one of the most culturally significant texts of our time!”  He looked at them all, desperately, but drew blank looks all round the table.

“Actually, never mind,” he said.  “The thing is, no Goa'uld wrote that.  The Goa'uld don't care about doing the right thing in spite of your friends.  The Goa'uld aren't big on _having_ friends.  That's Jack, right there.  Jack's mind is all over t his thing.”

Hammond thought about that for a moment. "Why?" 

"Uhhhhm," Daniel said.  "That part I don't know yet."   

“So we still have no idea why Colonel O’Neill would cooperate willingly with a Goa’uld."

"Uh, no," Daniel said. 

 “No, sir,” Carter said.  Fraiser shook her head. 

 “Then as far as I’m concerned, the Tok’Ra can go ahead.  Malek can extract Oberon from O'Neill as soon as his machine is ready.”

 “Yes, sir," Carter said.   

"Dismissed."

Teal'c bowed his head, conceding to his commander's decision, but said nothing.  Daniel turned back to the screen, pinching the bridge of his nose again, as if pressure would speed his brain up.  Hammond stood up.  They all stood up, and Hammond left.  Fraiser and Teal’c left with him. 

  Daniel was still standing with the remote in his hand, staring at the screen, lost in thought. Carter walked up behind him. 

 “Daniel?” 

 He was staring at the monitor with the unfocused expression he wore when he had hit a wall in his translations. 

"It’s not even a manifesto, really,” he said, without looking at her.  He was frowning at Oberon’s writings.  “It’s just a rant.  Badly written, badly formulated, repeats itself, spelling errors all over.” 

 “Spelling errors?” 

 “There's too much tea.”  He tapped the remote against his lips. 

 “Tea?” 

 “Not, ah, tea that you drink.  The letter ‘Ti.’  What we call the bread-bun.  See this little half-circle?  Here… and here… and here…”  He walked over to the screen, showing the symbols to her.  “Oberon keeps adding  ‘Ti’ to words that don’t need it.”

 “What does it mean?” 

 “Well,” Daniel looked up at the ceiling, and then down at the carpet.  “As I'm sure you know, Hieroglyphics can be read in three different ways, depending on context.  The bread-bun can just mean a bread-bun.  And then, it reads the letter ‘Ti’ when you’re spelling out words phonetically, as in ‘Nefertiti,’ which translates as ‘the beautiful woman just arrived.'  In other parts of your word, it's also the grammatical determinant for feminine nouns and verbs.  Which _also_ gives you Nefertiti, comes to think of it.  Nefer-ti-ti.  The beautiful woman has arrived.” 

 He stopped talking, and just stared at the screen.  “Wait.  Hang on.  Hang on.  Why didn’t I think of that before?”    

 “Daniel?”    

 “I am the _child_ of Apophis…” Daniel said, under his breath.  “That’s what he said, that’s what he said in the garden as well as here.  I am the child of Amunhet and Apophis… I am _the child.”_  

  He turned to face her, but she could see from his unfocused eyes that he wasn’t seeing her.  “Sam?  I need to see those X-rays again?” 

 She went to Fraiser’s place at the table.  The prints of the X-rays were still there.  He grabbed them from her, and held them up against the light.   “Look, look!" 

"What am I looking at?" 

"Here!  These dorsal ridges, right here?  I’ve seen this before!”

 “What?  Where?”

 “In a fossil bone-bed on P3X-888!" 

 “The Goa’uld homeworld?”

 "Fraiser didn’t see it, because she's not an archaeologist!  She just saw how small Oberon is!  But I've seen these before!  Sam, I've seen these before!  Sam! I _know_ why Jack is helping Oberon.”  ” Daniel lowered the X-rays and stared at her, and his eyes were wide, and unfocused.

 “Why?” 

"He's a she!"

"What?"

"Oberon is a girl!"

"A girl?"  Carter couldn't fold her head around the new information just yet.  "But Jack won't help a Goa'uld just because she's a _girl."_  

"Sam, this is _Jack_ we're talking about!  This is _exactly_ the kind of thing Jack does. "

Carter felt the blood running out of her face.  There was nothing Jack O'Neill liked more than a damsel in distress.  Cassandra - Merrin - Kanan's girlfriend - it was a _long_ list.  "Oberon is a girl."

"We need to talk to him.  Them.  Her.” 

 “We don’t have time," she said.  "The Tok'Ra are here."

“We need to stop them!  The Tok'Ra are about to make a huge mistake!"

* * *

 

 _We’re running out of time,_ Jack said. 

 _It’s not your fault,_ I said.  _No Goa’uld could ask for a better companion._

_You’ll die._

I had not been taken back to Obs 1. but to the small dark interview room where I had first spoken to Hammond, and where I had met the slimy Kanan.  The hand-cuffs had been replaced, along with ankle-chains.  We were left alone; long enough for Jack to start worrying. It had been over an hour since the Tok’Ra had arrived through the Stargate.  What were they doing?  What were they saying?

I could feel his exhaustion, but I could feel something else - fear.

He was trying to hide it from me, in the dark partition where he kept thoughts of Charlie, and suicide, and Baal's Sarcophagus, but the fear was leaking out around his control like a cold draft. 

Fear.  The situation was slipping out of his control. 

Fear, for me.

None of my ancestors had _ever_ had a host fear for their safety.  The situation was slipping out of Jack's control, away from the original plan.  He was not in control any more. He had lost the initiative that had carried us safely away from Keshefnet. 

He had done his best.  I couldn't blame him for leading me into this situation; he had done his best. _No Goa'uld could ever hope for a better host,_ I promised him. 

_It's not over yet!  Talk to them!  This is your last chance!_

Jack wanted to get up and move, but handcuffed, he could not.  I held a tight lock on his head and neck, not allowing him to speak, so he worked his jaw up and down instead, pressing his jaw up and down against my control as hard as he could.  I could have asked him to stop doing that, but I did not. 

Daniel Jackson opened the door, and walked in.  I watched him as he pulled out a chair and sat down. 

 “A visitor,” I said.  I drew up the corners of Jack’s mouth into a sneer, hiding my fear.   “Here I thought you had forgotten about me.”

“The Tok’Ra are here.” 

 “Yes, they said they would be,” I said.   

 “They’re getting ready to extract you from Jack.  You’re out of time, Oberon.”

 “Then it is done.”

I folded Jack’s hands on the table in front of him, and he brought his right hand around and cupped my left, and I could feel his reassurance through that touch.  “I tried to kill Keshefnet, and I have failed.” 

  _I’m sorry,_ Jack said. 

“I wanted to have a word with you first,” Daniel said.  

 “Speak, then.  Waste some time with words.  I don’t care.” 

“Why did you name yourself Oberon?”

That wasn’t the question I had been expecting. 

“Jack suggested it.” 

“It’s not a very Goa’uld name, is it?” Daniel said.  “In fact, it’s very human.  I couldn’t figure out why on earth a Goa’uld would choose that name, at all.  The Goa’uld are very traditional.  Either they recycle the names of gods, or they invent their own.  But Oberon?  Oberon is from a play.” 

“Oberon, the king of the fairies.” 

“Yes,” Daniel said.  “Yes, _exactly,_ and _then_ I realized, Oberon wasn’t the only fairy in that play.  Was he?  No.  There were two.  Two fairies.  Two consorts, husband and wife.  The two biggest moons orbiting Uranus.  Your name isn’t Oberon."

"Yes, it is," I snarled.  

"No, it isn't.  Your name is Titania.” 

I sucked in a breath, and I felt Jack’s eyes flare.  I bared Jack’s teeth, and snarled at Daniel. 

"You know nothing!" 

But Daniel was not intimidated, and a smile played over his face. 

“Queen Titania,” he smiled at me.  

 _Told you he was clever!_ Jack said. 

 _YOU deal with this!_   I snarled at Jack, and pulled out of his head. 

As soon as his head was free, he rocked forward in his chair, and threw his head down over his own fists. 

“Aaaa – _aaaaaaargh!”_   He pressed his fists into his brow, pressing his knuckles against his skull. 

“Jack?” Daniel leaned forward, suddenly afraid again. 

 “Do you know," Jack said.  “Do you have any idea.  Do you have the slightest conception, Daniel.  Just how _hard_ it is.  _Not … saying  … SHE?”_  

 “Oh.” 

 He spoke into his fists. “There’s a _girl_ in my head, Daniel!  I've had a _girl_ in my head for two days!  And I’ve been trying for two days not to say ' _she.'_   For two whole days, I've been calling her 'he,' and it’s enough to make me _shit._ I can't _cope_ with it any more!"

“She’s a queen, then,” Daniel said.

Jack opened his eyes, raised his head, and sat up. “Oh, she’s a queen all right.” 

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Hey, I _tried_ telling you!  She wouldn’t let me!  She doesn’t trust the Tok’Ra.  She doesn’t trust anyone.  It took a while to talk her into it.” 

“And now?”  Daniel asked.  “Will she talk to the Tok’Ra.”

 _Yes,_ I said, quietly. _Tell him, yes._

“She’s willing to give it a shot.  She doesn’t trust them, but she does trust me.  She’ll try it, if they will.”   

Daniel turned in his chair, and stared up at the video camera in the corner.  “I think we need the Tok’Ra back in here!” he said.  “Right now!” 

The Tok’Ra must have been waiting at the door, because it opened almost instantly.  Malek and Selmak came inside.  They closed the door behind them, and Daniel gave up the chair for Selmak.  He retreated to the wall to one side, watching us. The two Tok'Ra sat down, facing us. 

I might not have Jack’s body, but right now, it didn’t matter.  I showed him what to do, and he did it. 

He laced his fingertips together, and stretched his arms out in front of him, as far as he could.  I sighed.  It felt _good_ , asking him to move the way I wanted him to.  It felt free, like being let out of prison, as if I was breathing for the first time.  Euphoria flooded through me. 

 "Jack says I can trust you," I said to the two Tok’Ra. 

 "Funny," Selmak said.  "He says we should trust  _you."_

 "I don't need you,” I said. 

 "We do not need you, either," Malek said. 

 "But together, Jack says, we are stronger,”  I said.  “That together, we can challenge the System Lords.  We can fight separately, but together, we will win.  You have weapons, and I can spawn thousands of prim'tah to carry them." 

 "Is it true, then?" Selmak said. "You are a queen." 

"Yes,” I said. 

"How do you know you're a queen?" Selmak asked. 

It was a surprising question.  “I don’t know.  I just _am._   How do you know you’re not?” 

“I know what my host is,” Selmak said.  "If my host is male, I am." 

  “Well, I know what Jack is,” I said, primly.  “And I know  he is not what I’m meant to have. I know that I am a queen. I know I need a female host.  As soon as I found myself in Jack, I knew he wasn't right."

“And that's why Jack is helping you, is it not?" Malek asked. 

"Coming here was Jack’s idea.   He says that without me, sooner or later, one of the minor Goa’uld will bring back the System Lords, and the whole war will start all over again.  _I_ can stop that from happening, he says.  _Only_ me.  He offered to help me, as soon as he realized I was a queen.  I have a better idea, he said.  I just wanted to kill Keshefnet.  I was going to wait for the right moment, and then cut her throat."

“Why?”

“Because I want the Garden!  I want to raise my own prim’tah there!  Mine!” 

 “I see.” 

 “And if I have the Garden, I don't need a sire.  I can survive on my own.  I can bear and raise thousands of prim'tah without a sire.  I don't need you."

 "And your prim'tah would all be drones," Selmak said.  "Your line will die out after one generation.  You need a sire to have fertile offspring.” 

 “You _have_ sires?” 

“Sixteen,” Malek said.  "Including me."

 _Really?_ I looked at him anew.  He had a nice face.  Intense hooded eyes; curly hair brushed forward over a high brow; a firm mouth.  I could kiss that mouth.

 _Ugh,_ Jack said. 

“Sixteen sires is enough,” I said.  “More than enough!”

Selmak cleared his throat.  “Tell us about this Garden,” he said. 

"The planet is similar in composition and orbit to the first Goa’uld homeworld.  The sand is rich in naquadah, the river is clean, and the fish are fat and rich.  It is the perfect planet to raise prim'tah.  The System Lords don’t know it exists.  I and my children would be safe there.  All I need to do is take it." 

“Win the Garden, win the queen,” Malek said to Selmak.   

I jerked up my head, offended, and I felt Jack’s eyes flash.  “I won’t be _won!_   I’m not first prize in an agricultural show!”

 _Yeah, you tell him, girl!_ Jack said. 

 “The way the System Lords have treated _us,_ their _queens,_ for thousands of years is an _abomination!_ I will not be ruled over by my brothers.  The way my mother was ruled by Apophis, the way Isis was ruled by Osiris!  If it was not for the war that Jack started,  _I_ would become my brother Klorel's queen. I would spend my life producing Klorel's prim'tah, to put inside Klorel's Jaffa, and thrown away in _Klorel's wars!_ I will not live like that!"

  _"We_ are not the System Lords!" Malek said.  A crease appeared between his eyes.  He was offended by the comparison. 

"You will be respected," Selmak said.  "Egeria founded the Tok'Ra, because she believed that Ra was evil.  We respect her memory, as we will respect you." 

_He’s right.  They are not the System Lords.  They won’t treat you like your mother, they’ll treat you like their mother.  Everything they’ve ever done has been in Egeria's name._

“Titania?” Selmak asked, when I had not spoken in a few seconds. 

I focused my eyes on him.  “Jack is telling me that this is true.” 

 “Jack knows,” Selmak said. 

 “He also says that I should offer you an alliance,” I told them. 

 _Yes,_ Jack said.  _Yes yes yes yes!_     

 Selmak and Malek looked at each other.   

 “There will be conditions,” Selmak warned. 

 “Yes,” I said, holding up one finger.  “My first condition.  All my prim’tah will be spawned as _tabula rasa.”_

 “Blank slates?” 

 “I will not have _my_ children remember the System Lords.  They will be _tabula rasa._   This is not negotiable.” 

 “Agreed,” Selmak said, without hesitation.   

I wasa surprised that he agreed without hassle. 

"And secondly," I said, aware that I was negotiating for my children.  "There will be no Jaffa! For thousands of years, we queens have spawned thousands of children, only to see our sires plant them into Jaffa, and throw them away in battle for __their_ _ power.  My prim'tah are my _children,_ not your weapons.  None of my children will ever see the incubation pouch of a Jaffa." 

"There will be no Jaffa," Selmak said.  "Our alliance with the Free Jaffa Nation has fallen apart." 

 "Then you are committed to an alliance with me, instead?"  I asked.  "With the intention of producing another generation of Tok'Goa'uld?" 

 Selmak and Malek exchanged glances.  "We are committed." 

 _"Koma ata,"_ I said.  

_"Koma ata!"_

 “The job is not finished,” Malek warned.  “We still have to take the Garden from Keshefnet.” 

 “I can supply all the intelligence needed to get into the Garden,” I said.  “It is all recorded on the floor of the room in which I passed last night.  Jack and I drew a full tactical model on the floor.”

 “Give us two days to muster our operatives,” Malek said. 

 “You have one day,” I told him. 

 “One?" Selmak asked.  "Why one?” 

 “Because in one day, Keshefnet is expecting me, and _that_ is when I am going to scratch her bitch eyes out,” I said. 

Something about the look on their faces made Jack laugh. 

_You are a Goa'uld piece of work, kiddo._

 

* * *

 

 Carter found her father in the briefing room, standing by the window and staring down at the Stargate. "Hey, Dad," she said.

  He turned to her. "Hey, Sam."

"Who's arriving?"

 She walked up to the window, and looked down into the Gate Room.  A new platoon of Tok'Ra had just arrived, and Malek was below with Hammond, greeting them. 

"Reinforcements," Jacob said.  "We managed to pull together a small platoon at short notice."

The big cargo door to the left of the Gate Room opened, and Titania walked in. 

Now that Titania was out as a girl, it was impossible to miss the she really was a girl.  Titania sat like a girl. She spoke like a girl.  She walked like a girl.  She still _looked_ like an Air Force Colonel, all big bones and BDU - but in every other way, she was a girl.

The alien coldness and the angry snarling was gone. It had _all_ been an act. Titania had been trying to perform masculinity, and she had been terrible at it. 

 "Selmak?" Carter asked.  "Are you sure about this?"

 Jacob dipped his head, and the reply came from Selmak.  "Malek and I have discussed it, and we think it is a risk worth running.  We have sought a queen for many years, but queens are far too heavily defended by the System Lords.  They know that possession of a queen is the true source of their military power."

 "If Titania is lying..." she began.

 "If Titania is lying," he finished, "We will still have taken out a Goa'uld.  And if Titania is _not_ lying, we will have a queen."

 "And with a queen, you can build up your numbers."

 "Yes," he said.  "The Tok'Ra will have a future. It will take decades - but we will.  The Goa'uld have reached negative population growth.  For some reason, _their_ queens have all stopped spawning."

"Perhaps they're old," Carter said. 

"Perhaps they are," Selmak said.  "Or perhaps, they have _also_ grown tired of the domination of the System Lords."

"I wonder how much of Titania's beliefs are hers, and how much are from Amunet?"

"I have no way of knowing," Selmak said.  "There are things that the sires and queens do not discuss with drones." 

The wormhole disengaged, and the flickering light went out.  The airmen in the Gate Room below went their separate ways.  The Tok'Ra went out, following Malek and towing an anti-gravity sled full of their equipment.  Hammond went out through the door, and a moment later Carter heard him coming up the stairs and into the debriefing room. 

"Why in all that's holy does Colonel O'Neill have to make such a performance out of this?" Hammond barked.

"Sir?"

"Look at him! Nail polish!  And that voice!  It's embarrassing!  He still has control of his body from the neck down, doesn't he?"

"He says it makes Titania feel better, sir," Carter found herself springing to O'Neill's defence. "He says she did 'boy mode' for two days.  He can do 'girl mode' for one day, if it makes her feel better." 

"Well, it makes _me_ feel pretty damn awful explaining it!  I had a hell of a time explaining it to the Russian delegation!" 

The fire flashed in Selmak's eyes. 

"It has absolutely _nothing_ to do with you!" Selmak said, sharply.  "How O'Neill chooses to share his body with his symbiote is not for outsiders to judge!  Jacob gave up coffee, because I dislike the way caffeine affects me.  Titania is a girl, and Colonel O'Neill chooses to perform 'girl' to keep her comfortable!  It is _not_ your prerogative, _not_ your place, to judge host and symbiote for the ways they exercise their blending!"  

Hammond looked shocked. 

Carter blinked.  She had never heard Selmak speak so sharply to anyone; she had never seen fire in his eyes.  

For a second, Hammond just gaped, his mouth open.  Then he snapped his mouth shut again. 

"Well," Hammond said.  "All I can say is, the sooner this is over, the better.  Eight hours to go, before Keshefnet's deadline, and I for one can't wait." 

"I am sure that none of us is as eager for that deadline as Titania herself." Selmak said. 

* * *

 

 

We had one day, and in that day I saw the Tau’ri make miracles happen. 

I could see right in front of my eyes how the planning for a fast attack came about, and I could see with my own eyes how fast they moved compared with the System Lords.  An attack of any size took months to prepare, from the first command of Apophis to the actual attack. 

Jack was unimpressed.  He did this every day, he said, launching mission after mission around the clock.  The Tau'ri had airmen and Marines standing by in the SGC, equipped and trained. The troops had been called up, they'd been briefed on Keshefnet's Garden, and they were now in the Gate Room, waiting, prepping their weapons, ready to go.

 _You were right,_ I said to him.  _This is a far better plan than mine.  If I had done this alone, I would have taken years to gather my strength and lay my plans._

 _I told you I knew what I was doing,_ he said.  _For us, this is just another mission._

 We were in Jack’s office, and he was preparing for battle.  He was securely compressed inside the weight of all his armour.  He was already dressed in Desert Camouflage Uniform; an ugly colour that didn’t suit him at all. 

 “I don’t care if it doesn’t suit me,” he said aloud. 

  _I care,_ I said. 

 “Well, soon enough you’ll find someone else, won’t you?”  he asked.  “The Tok’Ra will find you someone else. A female host just right for you.  You can dress her however you want.” 

He picked up his P90, checked out the mechanism, and dry-fired it a few times.  He saw the red nail polish he still wore on his left hand, and the wrong-ness of it made him cringe a little bit, but he didn't comment on it.  

 _Thank you._ The preparation for this attack had taken place like lightning, but even better was their switch to using my true name. They called me she, even in Jack's male body. They called me Titania, and every time I heard it I fel flushed with pleasure and relief. The name Oberon was dead, as if it had never been. 

He picked up his pistol, and checked it.  And then he checked that all his magazines were where they were supposed to be.  He closed the relevant pockets tightly over them  A sergeant had loaded it for him, but it was habit now to check all his equipment himself before he went through the Stargate.  I watched him, but I did not interfere.  He had prepped for so many missions they had all blurred together in his memory. 

_Now that we are here, I don’t want to go._

First-aid kit, spare bandages.  Binoculars.  GDO.  They went into the relevant pockets, buttoned down. 

 "Nobody _wants_ to go into a fight,” he said.  “Nobody smart.  I just want to get it over with.”

_And be rid of me._

 “No offense, sweetheart, but if this goes on much longer, I'm going to end up wearing a dress.  So hell yeah, I want to get rid of you."

 _And you would be as miserable in woman's clothes as I am in a man's body._ He would do it if I asked, but I could not ask that. He would feel every bit as bad as I felt in his body.

"Hey, you do you. Go out there in the stars, and be a girl." 

There was a knock at the door.  Jack turned. Carter was standing in the doorway one hand raised, as if she was going to knock again.  There was a smile on her face that told me that she had heard some of our one-way conversation.  “Colonel.”

“Carter?” Jack said.

“It’s time, sir.”

“We're ready.  Let’s go.”

In a few short minutes, I would have a Garden, or I would be dead.

We followed her out of Jack’s office, and down the cement corridors.  Up flights of steel stairs, boots pounding on the steel grilles, following the lines painted on the concrete floors.  Through another set of blast doors, sharp turn to the right.

The Gate Room bristled with weapons and macho energy.  General Hammond had given us SG3, 5, and 12, and the Tok'Ra had given us a twelve-man squad.  They had spent all day going over the map of the Garden that I had drawn on the floor, until everyone knew exactly where to go and what to do.  They were checking themselves, over one last time, checking weapons, checking armour.   I saw Teal'c, and Daniel, going into battle with the airmen and Marines as always.  The Tok'Ra were there, in silence, keeping a little apart from the Tau'ri troops. A UAV was lined up with the Chappa’ai, and a row of ground-to-ground missiles were racked, ready to follow it.

A _ir Force,_ Jack said when I looked at the aircraft.  _We work smarter._

Siler was coming up, carrying a flat case.  He opened it.  Inside was my kara-kesh, and the Dome Code ring. Jack put the ring into his pocket and reached out for the kara-kesh. He slipped his wrist through the strip, and his fingers into the cups, and raised it.  He turned his palm to face himself. 

 “All right, let’s see if this works.” 

I reached through him for the weapon.  The jewel glowed like honey.

“I guess it works,” he said.

We turned to the windows of the Control Room.  Hammond was there, watching, and Davis, and every techie and egghead on the base.  The assembled troops were looking at us.  Jack raised his hand to the salute, and Hammond returned it.

There was a rather stiff moment of silence.  Everyone was waiting.  We were as ready as we would be. 

 _You should make a speech,_ I said.  _Something inspiring, and uplifting, to inspire your troops with courage..._

"Right, let’s go, before the Marines start licking the Stargate!” he announced. 

There was a chuckle around the Gate Room, aimed at the Marine SG teams. The siren sang out.  The red emergency lights flashed.  The Chappa’ai began to turn.  The first key locked, flaring. 

“Chevron one, encoded.”

 All eyes were on us; on me, and on Jack.  They were as ready as they could be.  They were waiting for the order to follow us through the Chappa’ai, and into battle.  My battle; my mission. 

 “Chevron two, encoded.”

 I am Goa’uld, and I am not ashamed to be.  It is my right to lead, to command, to conquer  - but for a moment I quivered.  These were people who had been the _enemies_ of the Goa’uld for years, but here they were, ready to fight for _my_ ambitions. 

Was it really worth all this, just to be myself?  Was I risking too much for my own happiness?  I did not _need_ the Garden; I did not _need_ a female host.  If I failed, I would have thrown away _their_ lives, for _my_ dreams. 

  _So, don’t fail,_ Jack said. 

 The Chappa’ai rumbled.  “Chevron three encoded.”

  _Do me a favour,_ Jack asked. 

  _Anything,_ I replied. 

  _When we go through, you do what you did when I punched Kanan.  You said there were safety mechanisms, natural limits to my strength?  Disable them.  Disable them all._

 _I don’t want to hurt you,_ I said.  _If I leave you today, you will have to heal by yourself._

_Disable them all.  I can heal. This matters more than a few bruises._

_Very well.  I will disable them.  And I will keep your stamina up as high as I can._

_Good girl._

 Even now, looking back,  I still don’t understand really why hearing him say that made me so happy.  They were just two words, but they made certainty and pride flood through me, from my gills to my tail. 

 “Chevron seven, encoded, and locked!  Wormhole achieved!” 

I looked up at the Chappa’ai, as the event horizon crashed into existence.  It crashed out toward us, quanta thrashing to find each other on either side, and then levelled out in the familiar silver pool. 

 Jack took out his sunglasses, and put them on.  Without more ado, he strode up the ramp, and stepped through the wormhole.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing and uploading the last chapter in a few days.


	4. Reign

We popped out of the gate.  The Dome glimmered in front of us, lit like fire by the sunset. 

 Jack had control, and he kept it.  He kept running, straight down the steps to the roadway. The first troops were already pouring out of the Chappa’ai behind us.  We kept running down the road, racing for the archway into the Garden. 

 “Move, move!” someone behind yelled.  “Clear the ramp, move!”  There was a whooosh and a roar, and the first Tau’ri UAV soared through the Chappa’ai, racing for altitude, and I knew that a pair of ground-to-ground missiles would soon follow it. 

 Speed, _speed_ was the trick here; speed and surprise.  We had thirty-eight minutes before the wormhole closed, but not nearly as much time before Keshefnet woke up to our attack.  No time at all, before she pulled up the Dome again and sealed us inside; no time before the Jaffa woke up and came boiling out of their barracks to face us.  The Garden was a maze of 3000 acres; our mission was to penetrate the maze and kill Keshefnet.  Speed; _speed_ was the trick, the seconds were already pouring away.

Jack accelerated, sprinting across the flat flagstones toward the gateway into the Garden.  His own shadow was long in front of him, leading him on.   The archway of the gate welcomed us.  Beyond it, the air shimmered. 

“The Dome is up!” Carter shouted.

“Not for long!” Jack pulled the ring out of his pocket, and put it on his finger.  He raised his hand up. The Dome cut out. 

“We’re in!  Come on!” he shouted.  We ran into the Garden, and I pulled on his neck, steering him sharply to the left.  Carter and Teal’c and the rest of Green Team were right with us.  Red and Blue teams peeled off from us,  going a different path to pin down the Jaffa before they could mobilize and block our way.  A loud explosion bellowed, and smoke billowed beyond the trees; the SGC had taken out the first artillery piece with a missile fired straight through the wormhole. 

 “Come on!” Jack shouted.  He was running hard. 

It was the sound of his breathing that struck me most.  Harsh breaths, huge muscles – I could feel all the weight and strength of this aggressive animal under me, charging.He was accelerating up to his full power.  The planet seemed to be shaking under me.   

I leaned on his neck, steering him tightly around a corner.  We raced past the Pavilion of Falling Water.  And here was the first gun placement, hidden inside a stand of trees, unmanned.  And here were the first Jaffa, running to meet us, half-armoured.  Their surprise was wearing off.  They were boiling out of barracks, fast.  If we weren't faster, they would cut us off from Keshefnet's Tower. 

 “Here they come!” Carter shouted.  She dropped to one knee, firing to keep the Jaffa back.  Jack dropped down at her side, and the P-90's recoil slammed into his shoulder, the sound like a hammer on his ears.  The gun crew was running to man the nek'sed cannon, ducking behind the shield, grabbing ther firing handles.  The long muzzle swung around to face us – this wide avenue would be a killing ground – Jack clenched his teeth – and nothing happened. 

 The old Prime had been true to his word!  The great nek’sed cannon had been allowed to run flat, and before the crews could recover and link it back to its generator, they were dropped with Zats.

The Prime himself appeared.  He was shouting to the gun crew in Goa'uld.  _He’s telling them to stand down!_ I shouted to Jack. 

 _“Shol’va!”_ one of the Jaffa at the nek'sed shouted, and turned his staff weapon on his own commander.  _Jack!_

Jack dropped the P-90 on its carry strap and lined the _kara kesh_.  I sent a surge of strength through him and blasted all three off their feet.  They crashed together into a stand of hibiscus in a tangle.  _Stun ‘em now, sort ‘em out later._ He launched us out of his cover.  “Come on!”

 _“Be advised, the Dome is up!”_ someone yelled on the radio.  _“Repeat, the Dome is up!”_

Keshefnet had woken up to my betrayal. We were sealed in.  "Ah, crap," Jack muttered. 

 We all knew what that meant.  We wouldn’t have reinforcements until the Dome was down again, and the UAV's missiles couldn't take out any more of the nek'sed emplacements.  We had to penetrate the Garden, drive straight in past the defences to Keshefnet, before the Jaffa picked us off.  We were outnumbered ten-to-one and we could be picked off, trapped in the Garden.  We had to get the Dome down! 

A rattle of gunfire burst out somewhere to the west.  The clockwise team were running into stiffer resistance over there.  There were shouts over the radio, letting us all know where they were, coordinating with each other to leapfrog the nek’seds and outflank Keshefnet’s troops. 

I felt Jack’s pride in his men, even as he raced on, outflanking them all, racing to the Tower.  It loomed above us like a great beacon, glowing in the sunset. “Red Team, status!”

_“Inside!  Closing on Location G! Taking heavy fire!”_

“Blue team!”

_“Pinned down by the nek’sed!  We need air cover to take out this gun!”  
_

“Selmak!”

_“Stuck outside!  Get that Dome down, Jack!”_

We wouldn’t have air cover again until the Dome was down again.  “Nearly there!” Jack shouted, and let go the radio. 

We ran on.  Nearly there!  Our fast drive for the Tower had cut through the Jaffa before they could form a line.  The deep-water channel was right in front of us; the last barrier to the Tower.   One more turn, and we would be there.   I leaned Jack to the left with a touch to his cheek, but a second later he skidded to a stop, right on the edge of a sheer drop.  Carter nearly slammed into his back. 

We wobbled on the edge for a second.  The edge dropped off into deep black water. 

_There’s supposed to be a bridge here!_

“The bridge is gone!” Carter shouted into her radio, her blue eyes wild as she stared down into the water.  “All teams, be advised, the bridge is gone!”

 _And if this one’s down, the one on the far side will be too!_ I said to Jack.

“Keshefnet must have dropped the bridge at the same time as she sealed the Dome!” Jack said. 

He stared down into the dark water, and up at the Tower.  Without the bridge, the channel became a moat.  The water below boiled with prim’tah; I could hear them whistling and shrieking, angered by the noise.

“Swim, sir?” one of the Marines asked. 

  _No!_ _They may be small, but they can strip all the meat off a horse in thirty minutes!_ I said, remembering when I had been one of them.

“No!” Jack said.  “They’re small but they bite!”

"There has to be a way over, sir!" 

I stared down at the water, and then across at the Tower.  We were so close!  Keshefnet was in there.  We _had_ to get in there, or the Jaffa would start pushing us back, picking us off one by one.  We _had_ to get across _there,_ and then I took hold of Jack’s head, and turned him away from the edge.  I steered him back down the path.

 _I can get us across there,_ I said to him, asking him for a quick jog.

 _How?_  He picked up his pace into a trot.

 _Drop the P-90!_  

He pulled the strap off over his head, and let the big weapon drop as he jogged away.

 _You’re going to jump it._   I turned him with a touch to his cheek, so that he got a good look at the width of the channel.

 _I can’t jump that!_ he said, surprised.  _  
_

_You’re GOING to jump that!_   I said, and urged him into a run.  He accelerated into a flat sprint, and I packed strength into his muscles as hard as I could.   

 _I can’t jump that!_ he said as he rocketed to the edge, and I felt him baulk.

He couldn't baulk now!  _JUMP IT!_   I screamed, and gave him a sting of pain, and he powered to his full speed.  He launched himself off the edge into the air on half-forgotten muscle memories.  I saw the froth of the prim’tah flash under him, and the edge of the step, and then we were rolling onto gravel. 

 _Ow, ow, ow!_  he said, rolling over his impact around his shoulder and hip.  

_I told you you could jump it._

He picked himself to his feet, and jogged back to the edge.

Carter, Daniel and the Marine were on the other side, staring at us as if Jack had suddenly sprouted wings.  “Sir?  Are you okay?”

“I’m good!”  he called back.  “Go and link up with Blue Team!  Flank that nek'sed and take it out!" 

“No!  I won’t leave you, sir!” 

 _We have to go, Jack!_  

“I'm not alone here, Carter!  Go support Blue Team, they’re being pinned down!  _I’ll_ deal with Keshefnet!  Go!  _GO!_ That's an order!”

She stared wildly at him for a moment before her military sense kicked in, and she spun away.  “Come on, let’s go!”  she shouted to Daniel and the Marine.

 _Now it’s just us and Keshefnet,_ I said to Jack. We were on the inside of the moat; alone.  One of the Tok’Ra might be able to make that jump – _might._   No-one else would be able to help us until we got the bridge up again.

“We need a gun,” he said.  The P-90 was lying on the other side of the channel.

 _We have this!_   I raised his hand with the kara-kesh wrapped around his wrist.  I could feel the heat of it in his palm; power, waiting to be used.  

“Then let’s go kill a snake!” he said, and turned on his heel.

We were alone on this side of the moat.  The Tower was in the centre, at the heart of the Garden.  Only a few winding pathways separated us from the Tower.  Jack ran with me, heart and lungs pounding, and I steered him around the last corner into the Tower’s open doorway. 

  _This way?_

_That way!  
_

_**WHUMP!** _

I felt Jack falling around me, crumpling around his chest.  He hit the ground on his back.  He couldn’t breath, and for a second I didn’t understand.  I forced his eyes open, and rolled his head around, scanning desperately to find out what had happened.

 A Jaffa was running down the path toward us, and he was carrying a staff weapon.  Jack had taken his shot full in the chest.  The ceramics in his body armour had soaked up the worst of the blast, but he was down. 

_Get up, get up, get up, get up!_

He tried, rolling onto his chest.  He tried, but his ears were ringing, and his chest was in spasm. 

The Jaffa slid to a stop, his staff weapon lined on Jack.  The weapon charged, static flickering. 

_Up, up, get up, Jack, I need you to get up now, please please please get up!_

He rolled, desperately, and reached down his hand to draw his side-arm. 

The staff weapon charged, muzzle opening, static dancing.  The Jaffa braced himself and lined the weapon on Jack's head, and it seemed as big as a planet. 

I squeezed Jack’s pain neurons, trying frantically to protect him at the moment of his death, but another figure leaped up to meet the Jaffa.  Blue _galabiyya_ met grey armour. A lawn scythe chopped out in a hard arc.  The grey figure dropped.  The blue _galabiyya_ turned to face us, and between the rolls of turban and veil, black eyes met mine. 

Jack closed his fingers around the P90, dragged it up to his chest.  He sat up and lined it, but it was over.  The Jaffa was lying on his back, the scythe rising from his throat.  The gardener had disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.

Jack blinked at the dead Jaffa, dazed.  His ears were ringing. _I think I'm hit,_ he said. 

I hauled down on his pain neurons, tamping down the damage before he felt it.  I could hide his own pain from him; hide the fact that he had two cracked ribs.  _You're not, you're golden, you're golden,_ I lied to him quickly.  _You're okay.  Up.  Get up!_

_I think I'm..._

_UP!_   I shouted.  _We’ve got to finish Keshefnet! Get UP, Jack!  They're all depending on us!_

 _Right!_ He rolled forward from his sitting position, and managed to get both feet under him. I got onto his pain neurons, lashing them down tight and tamping the damage before he felt it, dumping glucose and adrenalin into his bloodstream as fast as I could.   I ran the levels of his cortisol down as far as I could, and the dopamine right up.  

"Eh?" he grunted, surprised that he didn't feel any pain.  He knew he'd been hit, but he didn't know how. 

_That way!  We have to keep moving!_

He accelerated in through the arched doorway, and into the cool shadows of the Tower.  This was familiar; he knew the way now.  We ran together down the corridor, and straight into Keshefnet’s hall.  The throne I remembered; the prim’tah tanks to either side of it, and down the centre of the hall, the long pool where I had jumped to claim Jack. I stopped steering Jack, and he slid to a stop. 

Even I couldn't stop the dumb joke that sang out.   “Honey, I’m _ho-_ ome!” Jack crowed. 

 Keshefnet was standing at the control console before her throne.  The sunset through the tall windows lit her robes like molten gold.  She whirled at the sound of Jack’s voice, cloak swirling.  Her eyes flashed fire, and her kara-kesh lifted.

“You!”  she snapped, and the fire in her eyes flared.  “What have you _done?”  
_

I grabbed Jack's mouth. "I have returned with Tau'ri weapons, as I swore I would," I said.  "I never said I would return _alone."_

“You dare to attack me!  I fed you, raised you, gave you that host, and _this_ is how you repay _me?”_

Outside, we could hear ‘this,’ still on-going.  Jaffa, Tau’ri, and the Tok’Ra were still fighting it out in the Garden.  I could hear automatic rifle fire, rattling off the walls, and the _whe-oosh whe-oosh_ of staff weapons and nek’sed cannon.

But here in the hall, we were alone in silence. I didn’t look away from her.  Jack circled around the hall, keeping the wall at his back so that no-one could strike him from behind.   Keshefnet circled as well, matching us step for step.  The prim’tah in the tank beside her throne screamed and hissed in frenzy.  I hoped to steer Jack close enough to the control console to turn off the Dome. 

"Yes,  this is how I repay you," I hissed.  I didn’t look away from her.  “You killed my Jaffa.” 

 “I _what?”_

 “You killed my Jaffa!  He was mine, and you killed him, taking me from him."  She laughed.  _Laughed!_  

 “Killed your Jaffa?  I have killed so _many_ Jaffa, little one!" she crooned, delighted.  "They die like insects, don't they, when you take out their symbiotes!  I killed your Jaffa?  You’re so young, so naïve, so _pathetic…”_  

She was circling, and Jack was circling.  We faced each other now across the pool. 

"You killed my Jaffa!" I hissed.  I felt my sneer twist Jack’s face into a rictus.  "And I have come for my vengeance.  Your Garden is mine, Keshefnet!" 

"You?  Who do you think you are?  I am your God." 

"And _I_ am your _Queen!"  
_

I had the full roar of Jack's voice under me.  I saw the shock twist her face. 

"I am your Queen," I snarled.  "Look upon my works, Keshefnet, and despair." 

Shock turned to rage.  The rage flared in her eyes, hot and ugly.  " _Shol’va!”_   she screamed across the pool to me.   She used her words as a cover to strike. 

 Jack was already moving.  I didn’t see the decision form in his mind, which meant he was moving before he knew he was moving.  He dived, fighter pilot reflexes, throwing himself out of the way.  The blast from the kara-kesh smashed into the wall above us. We crunched beyond a pillar, rolling.  Chips of marble rained on us. 

 _"I am going to kill you!"_ Keshefnet screamed. 

 Jack climbed to his feet, keeping the pillar between us and Keshefnet.  _Use the kara-kesh,_ I told him.  _Raise our shield!_

He obeyed, raising his right hand.  I pumped power into the kara-kesh, and felt the thing respond to me.  I stepped out from behind the pillar. 

She lashed out with her kara-kesh, but this time Jack trusted my strength, and threw up his right arm.  I thrust my power into the kara-kesh.  Lights exploded around us, shrapnel and chips of marble, but when the fire cleared we stood safe.  The impact of her strike was wasted against my shield. 

“I I am Titania," I said slowly, using Jack's throat, every word deliberate.  "I am the daughter of Amunhet.  The grand-daughter of Nwt.  The heir of Egeria, Queen of the Tok’Ra!" 

I used my own words as a cover for my strike.  I lashed at her with my own kara-kesh, but she was too fast.  Our strike dissolved into crackles of fire around her shield.  

 “Your throne will be mine!  Your Garden will be mine!  You will _kneel,_ Keshefnet!  And you will serve _me!_ ”

 "Never!"  She lashed out at me.  My shield absorbed her strike, but slowly.   Jack stood safe, but I could feel that he’d been rocked by her strength.   

“Shol’va!” she hissed.  “You think you will dethrone _me?_ Usurp _my_ place in my Garden?  Weakling fool!  This place is mine!  I will kill you here today!”  

 She lashed out again, but this time my power came up too slowly, and I could not raise the shield in time. 

_WHOMP!_

Jack was diving clear, but too late.  Her strike picked him up and he flew through the air into a marble column.  He slammed into the marble, an impact that snapped his spine the wrong way around the column, and I felt him falling.   He thumped into the ground on his back, helpless.  He couldn’t breathe.  He couldn't move.  He was helpless.  I took control of his head, and turned it against the ground, and forced his eyes open to see.

Keshefnet was slinking toward us, kara-kesh extended, ready to finish us.

Jack saw what I saw, but he was cramping in pain, lungs wheezing.  _Jack!  Get up!_ I hauled down on his pain neurons, fed cortisol and adrenalin into his blood.  I could feel internal damage, and I tried to tamp the bleeding, and soak up the pain, but Keshefnet was still coming.  She was raising her kara-kesh, a smile of pleasure on her face. 

 _Get up!_ I begged, and he responded.  He rolled himself onto his side, and pushed himself up onto his elbows.

 _Get up, get up,_ and he was doing it, he was giving it to me, he was getting up.  His hands were braced on the marble, and he was pushing himself upright again.  _I need you to get up!_   _I need you to do it again!_ I implored him, begging him, pleading with him to give me more, one more time, and from some deep reserve of strength deep inside him, he found more.  He was bringing up the kara-kesh one more time.

“Weakling,” Keshefnet sneered.  She strolled forward to meet us, with her kara-kesh extended.  “An incomplete blending, as I thought.”

My kara-kesh was coming up, but it was so heavy, so heavy it _hurt,_ and Jack's broken bones were grating inside him, and his muscles were shaking with the effort. 

 “You were my first attempt,” Keshefnet said, smoothly.  “But I will try again.  And I will succeed.”

She struck, but Jack had done it.  He had raised the kara-kesh.  Our shield took the strike, and held it.  He staggered, but I poured myself into the shield, and it held.

She lashed out immediately, and again the shield held, but I could feel my strength draining away.  I was too young – I was too weak – I didn’t have the stamina to power the kara-kesh for much longer - I didn't have enough naquadah in Jack's blood.  Jack was doing his best, he was giving me everything he had, but I was letting him down.

 _I’m sorry!_   I said to him, as another strike battered my shield.  This one knocked him over to fall onto his side.  Another strike like that would end us.  I felt a sob of rage break out of his throat as he rolled upright, trying to right himself.   

 _I’m sorry!_   

 _Time for a new tactic,_ he snarled, too full of hatred to feel despair, and with a sob of effort he raised his head.  As the embers of Keshefnet’s next strike scattered on the tiles around us, he dropped the kara-kesh out of alignment.

I screamed, but he twisted on the ground, twisting away from Keshefnet.  He straightened his arm, levelling the power of the kara-kesh on the far side of the hall.  His fingers stiffened as he aimed the kara-kesh for one last desperate strike.   _Give it to me! Everything you’ve got!_

Keshefnet was closing the distance for one last strike that would finish us off, but she turned to see what Jack was aiming for.

 _“NO!”_ she screamed, and cast out her kara-kesh in a desperate attempt to deflect Jack's strike, but she was too late. 

The tank exploded.  Molten glass and water and steam blew out across the hall.  The explosion was ear-shattering, even after the earlier strikes.  Steam and hot glass richocheted like shrapnel across the hall.  Water and bits of torn prim’tah flesh flew across the marble. 

 _“NO!”_ Keshefnet shrieked.  She turned to us, rage twisting her face, but Jack was moving too fast.  He thrust himself up off his knees like a sprinter from the starting block.  She’d walked closer, confident, closing the distance, and his weight hit her and slammed her over onto her back, punching through her shield with pure brute muscle.  He landed on the ground on top of her chest.  His fists closed around her throat. 

Keshefnet tried to bring up the kara-kesh, but could not.  Jack’s fingers closed on her throat, tighter and tighter, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t fight, couldn’t get blood to her brain.  His fingers tightened around her throat, and he was crushing her larynx and windpipe.  Her fingers batted at his wrists, trying to pull his fingers away, trying to relieve the crushing pressure.  I could feel her knees kicking, feel the soft flesh of her throat under Jack’s hands, and see her face change colour under me.  Her eyes bulged out.

And that was when Jack decided to turn soft.  He melted with pity for her. 

 _Not now!_ I switched to the left hand and squeezed, and realized that at some point I had taken control of his right hand as well.  _My_ hands, not his, were killing Keshefnet.  My will, _my_ strength. 

  _Stop,_ he said, but I refused. 

  _You’re killing the host!_ he shouted.  _  
_

  _No!_   I leaned on her throat.  “Leave your host, or die inside her!” I snarled into Keshefnet's eyes. 

 The host was dying, choking, mouth gaping, making horrible cracking noises – and Keshefnet quit.  One instant she was glaring hate at us, the next she had gone limp.  Blood blossomed as the symbiote slashed her way out, abandoning her host.  A grey flash darted out from under her hair. 

I screamed at Jack, but he was already moving.  She was racing for the safety of the pool, but Jack was leaping after her.  She was fast, but he was faster!  He leaped across the marble after her. 

 Keshefnet, last hope of the System Lords, died under an Air Force jump boot. 

* * *

 

Carter knelt by Teal’c.  She aimed her P-90, walking a burst of fire along a wall to keep the Jaffa down.  They were cut off.  At her back, the deep water channel had become a trap.

 _“We need that Dome down, now!”_   Selmak yelled in her radio.

“Move, Major Carter!” Teal’c bellowed at her.

Staff weapons hit the ground, _whoosh, whoosh._   Explosions, and the ground rattling, and the sound of gun-fire.

The Jaffa were recovering from their surprise too fast.  Without reinforcements through the Dome, the attack was going to be cut off.  The plan to take out Keshefnet in a fast strike had gone to hell, wrecked by the hidden bridges.  Their plan of attack had been wrecked by one last line of fortification that Titania had not anticipated.  The attack was losing momentum, losing speed, breaking up into piecemeal attacks.  The Jaffa knew the ground, knew the lines of fire, and they were fighting back.

“We need air cover!”  someone shouted.

“We need that Dome down!”

A brilliant light glowed suddenly, right next to her position.

She nearly fired straight into the sky.  The light shot up, and spread out in a fan.  She rolled over, aiming her P-90, but the glowing tower of light was not a weapon.  It firmed up into a human figure.

It was O’Neill.  A _huge_ O’Neill.  He was transparent, but three-dimensional, and Carter realized she was looking up at a hologram.  She was looking straight up at the underside of his left hand, and she could see Keshefnet’s Tower through his fingers.

 _“_ _Jaffa_ _of Keshefnet!  Assemble, and hear me!”_   It was O’Neill’s body, but Titania’s voice.  Her words boomed from multiple sources all over the Garden.

“He has used the Vo’cume!” Teal’c shouted.

The gunfire had already stopped.

Carter knew that the Jaffa warriors had stopped, and were listening to the Vo’cume, as they were trained to do.  She knew that the SG teams had also stopped firing, staring at their enemy over their gun sights.  She could see a wounded Jaffa with a bullet in his shoulder pushing himself to a sitting position against a wall, and listening.

Titania’s words echoed through the Garden; all 3000 acres of it. 

_“Jaffa of Keshefnet, lay down your arms!  I speak to you through the Voice of Keshefnet, because Keshefnet is dead.  I am Titania!  The last daughter of Apophis!  The queen of the Tok’Ra!  I have slain Keshefnet, and by Goa’uld law, her domain is now mine!”_

Silence.  The Garden was listening.

 _“Lay down your arms,_ _Jaffa_ _.  Any one of you who fires upon my servants from this moment will die at my hand!  This Garden is mine!  You are now all mine!  Your God is dead.  I am your Queen!”_

O’Neill’s hologram wobbled for a second, as if the Vo’cume was running low on power.  He stepped backward, and the light was gone.

Carter held her P-90.  She could see a trio of Jaffa.  As she watched, their staff weapons hit the ground.

“They’re surrendering.”

“Their God is dead,” Teal’c said.  “They have nothing left to fight for.  It is done.”

“Major Carter!” Airman Porter said.  “Look!”  He was  looking at something behind her.

She turned, and looked over the edge of the stone into the water.  The bridge was rising from the black water.  Green water sluiced off the edges.  A prim’tah squealed as it wriggled itself off into the water.

Carter leaped onto the wet bridge and sprinted across the channel, P-90 raised.  She ran up the path to the doorway, and into the Tower.  She ran into Keshefnet’s hall, and skidded to a stop on the wet marble.

The beautiful hall had been smashed to ugliness.  The smoke was thick.  Water, broken glass and scraps of grey flesh scattered the marble.  Great jagged holes had been smashed into the columns.  The tanks beside Keshefnet’s throne were gone.

“Jack!” she shouted, frantic with fear for him.

“I’m here!”

He was kneeling next to Keshefnet against a marble column.  She was curled up in a ball on the floor.  She looked like she was crying.   

Carter slung her P-90 over her shoulder, and jogged to meet O’Neill.  Broken glass and stone gritted under her boots.  

“Is that Keshefnet?”

Jack shook his head, and pointed to where a dead symbiote lay on the wet marble in a smear of grey blood.  He pushed himself to his feet, and staggered as he stood.

She reached out and gripped his elbow, trying to support him.  Blood streaked his dusty face.  She could see blood on his lips, and a chip of marble embedded deep in his eyebrow, bleeding into his eye.  She’d noticed that he’d pulled off the kara-kesh and thrown it away.  “Sir?  Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine, Carter.”

He didn’t seem to have noticed the marble sticking out of his face.

“Titania?” she asked.    

“Jack has a broken scapula, three broken ribs, cracked collarbone, and multiple bits of glass embedded in his skin.  He’s bleeding internally from seven different places, and his spleen is ruptured.”  Titania reached out and gripped Carter’s hands tightly.  “No Sarcophagus!  I can deal with his injuries myself.”

“No Sarcophagus,” she promised.

“Then I’m going to let go of his pain neurons now.  And then I think he is going to fall over.”

She did.

“Oh.”  O’Neill looked at Carter, like a hurt little boy, and then his face went fish-white.  Carter was just quick enough to catch his body before he hit the floor. 

* * *

 

Another hot sunny day was baking down on the desert.  The battle for the Garden was over. 

 Samantha Carter turned to watch a tank of prim’tah being towed on an anti-gravity sled.  The Tok’Ra pulling the sled waved his hand as he went past.  He towed the sled through the archway, out of the Garden, and toward the Stargate. 

Jacob Carter turned to his daughter.  “That’s the last of them,” he said.

“All of them?” 

"All that we could catch." 

“We may have missed a few _tiny_ ones,” Malek added.  He held his finger and thumb apart to describe ‘tiny.’  “Young ones, too small for the net.”

“But at that age, they won’t give Titania any trouble,” Jacob said.  “In fact, they’ll probably end up serving her.  She can over-write their pheromones.”

The three of them turned, and walked up the path.

“You’re still sure about this?” Carter asked, walking next to her father.

“Yes,” Malek said.  “Titania won’t be ready to spawn for at least ten years.  And then it will taken seven more years before her prim’tah are mature.”

“As soon as the rest of us have withdrawn to the SGC, Malek and the others will dismount the Gate, and bury it in sand,” Selmak said.  “Only those of us on the Tok’Ra High Council will know that we have a queen.”

“As far as the rest of the galaxy knows, there is nothing here of any interest whatsoever,” Malek said, frowning at the Pavilion of Falling Water as he strolled past it.

“Seventeen years is a long time to be stuck here,” Carter said.   

“Not to _us,”_ Malek said. 

“We have always been prepared to play the long game,” Selmak added. 

They walked along. Carter felt a hollow pit of dread in the middle of her stomach; dread that she tried to hide.  To distract herself, she looked around at the Garden.  Yesterday, she had not had time to really see the Garden properly.  Being shot at had kept her mind busy, but now she looked around as they walked, trying to distract herself. 

For all her evil, Keshefnet had built something beautiful here.   The paths twisted around in geometric patterns of the garden, in and out of the shade.  Every turn opened up a new view, and every new view had a shaded place to sit.  The Goa’uld love for decoration had been let play here, in living things instead of cold sculpture, in shades of green instead of metalwork. 

They walked up to a wide pond, with a fountain standing on an eight-pointed star in the centre.  Teal’c was waiting for them on the other side of the pond, sitting on one of Keshefnet's stone benches.

He stood up, and bowed his head to them.  He did not smile in greeting.  “Major Carter.  Malek.  Selmak.”

“Hey, Teal’c,” Carter said.  “We’re going to the Tower to say goodbye. You with us?”

“I will, Major Carter.”

Teal’c joined their little group, and they walked on.  Carter tried to still the dread inside her stomach again. 

 “How are the Jaffa taking it?”  Carter asked.

“As well as may be expected, Major Carter.”

She waited for more, but after a moment realized she wasn’t getting it.  “Which is, good?  Bad?”

“It has always been so that the holdings of a defeated System Lord will be absorbed by the victor.”

“And the Jaffa are just going to roll with that?” she asked.  “They know we’re going to bury the Stargate for seventeen years?”

“Some of them are not pleased that they will be unable to join the Free Jaffa Nation, but they will abide, in time.  It will help that most of them have families on this planet.  They have set down roots on this world.”

“If they want to leave, there’s a whole planet out there beyond the desert,” Jacob said.  “They can take camels, and ride where they like.”

“Indeed.”

Carter could smell nectar on the air.  She found herself reaching out her fingers to brush flower petals and thick leaves, trailing her fingers over the stone, trying to taste and feel as much as she could through all her senses.  This lavender air here, that breath of jasmine, heliotropes there, and someone close by sneezed like a thunderstorm.

“Ah, I believe I know that sneeze,” Malek said.

"As do we all," Teal'c said. 

A moment later, Daniel Jackson came out of another of the tiled kiosks.  He was blowing his nose.

“Sam,” he said, pushing his handkerchief into his body-armour.  “Hey.”

“Hey, Daniel.”  Carter looked past Daniel.  Keshefnet’s host was sitting cross-legged on a patch of green lawn.  She was rocking herself back and forth, and holding a tulip against her face.  Her eyes were closed, but her lips were moving silently.  Rocking, and whispering.  Rocking, and whispering.

“How is she?”  Carter asked.

“Her name is A’isha,” Daniel said.  “And, uh, that’s all I know, sadly.  That’s all she remembers.  And it’s going to take a long time before she’s able to look after herself.”

“We will look after her,” Malek promised.

“We’re going to the Tower, now,” Carter said.  “You with us, Daniel.”

“Yes, yes, of course, of course…”  He pulled out his handkerchief again and trumpeted into it, and they walked on.

They crossed the bridge over the deep water channel that Jack O’Neill had jumped yesterday.  The path went into the deep shadow of the Tower.  The two Tok’Ra slowed as they approached the high arched door that led into the Tower.

 “We’ll wait out here,” Malek said.  “This, I think, is for SG1 to do.  He _led_ this mission, after all.”

“Yes,” Daniel said.  “Just give us a few minutes alone?”

“It’s the least we can do, after everything he did for us.”   

"If you need us, we'll be out here," Selmak added. 

The rest of SG1 walked in through the high entry of the Tower, and down the short corridor, into the ruined Hall.

Carter paused to take a look at Jack O'Neill, wanting to remember the scene. 

Jack O’Neill was sitting on the foot of Keshefnet's throne.  His crutch was on the floor at his side, and his left arm was in a blue sling.  He was talking to himself, and eating olives out of a bowl.   

He had been rushed straight back to the SGC yesterday, with multiple broken bones and a ruptured spleen, but by the time they got back to the Infirmary Fraiser could find nothing wrong with his spleen.  His bones were already knitting; his cuts were already closing.  He’d got up from his bed after just eight hours, and insisted on coming back to the Garden. 

"Yeah, I know,” he was now saying to himself.  “But hey, how many guys get to say they saved a whole intelligent race from extinction?” 

He was talking to Titania.  Talking to her aloud, as if she couldn’t hear his thoughts.  The accoustics of the hall were good, and Carter and Daniel could hear him from the door.

“Hell no!  No!  Ah-ah- _ah,_ I did _not_ need to hear that!  _Now_ you’re embarrassing me.  Just tell your descendants I was an ordinary guy, from an ordinary planet.”

Silence.  Carter found herself smiling.  She was getting used to the one-way conversations.  She would never admit it to O’Neill, but they were cute.

 “Listen.  You take care of yourself, you hear me?  I do _not_ want to be coming back to the Garden to pull your ass out of the fire.  You _take care_ of yourself.  And your wiggly baby-thingies, whatever you call ‘em.”

Carter and Daniel exchanged glances.  “That looks like goodbye,” Daniel said.

"I think it's time," Carter said.

Carter walked forward.  She crossed the floor to where O’Neill sat.  “Sir?”  she called, as she walked.

O’Neill turned to face her.  “Carter?”

“It’s time.  They’re just waiting on us now.”

“All right,” O’Neill said.  “Okay.”

"Is Titania ready?"

"Oh, hell, yeah, she's ready.  Downright desperate.  She's been desperate to get out of my body from the minute she jumped into it."

“Where do you want to do it?”

“Here will do.”  He reached out for the crutch, but instead Carter pulled him up. 

He turned to face her, and she saw Titania taking control of his face.  Titania reached out for both of Carter's hands, and gripped them both tightly.  Her hands - Jack's hands - were hard and warm. 

"Samantha," Titania said. 

"Titania?" 

"Take good care of Jack?" 

"I'll take good care of him." 

"He loves you, you know," Titania said.  "He loves you far more than he would _ever_ love me.  I could almost be jealous, if I was a human woman.  He loves you.  From one girl to another, you should let him love you.   No Goa'uld could ever hope for a better companion.  He deserves to be loved, and to give love in return." 

"I know." 

O'Neill was inside, Carter thought.  He could hear what Titania was saying, but he did not protest. 

"Also," Titania added, "he needs to get a glaucoma check more often.  And you should keep an eye on his serotonin levels, he's quite prone to fits of depression.  And that knee hurts him more than he wants to admit..."

"I'll take care of him for you," Carter said. 

"Good," Titania said.  "I leave him to you.  He's yours, now.  If ever you need me, you know where to find me.  Goodbye." 

"Goodbye, Titania."

Titania raised Carter's hands to Jack's face, and kissed her fingers gently.  Carter wondered which one of them was kissing her, but the kiss was perfectly chaste.   

Titania turned to Teal'c and Daniel Jackson.  "Goodbye, to both of you.  Goodbye, and thank you." 

"Goodbye," Daniel said. 

Teal'c bowed, slow and low; lower than Carter had ever seen him bow to any of the Tok'Ra. 

"All right, I'm ready." 

"Where are you going to do it?" Carter asked. 

"Right here will do," Titania said.  "I came from this pool, I can go back there again... I think it's fitting to end where I began." 

O'Neill limped on the crutch to the very edge of the pool.  He dropped the crutch with a clatter, and Carter and Daniel helped him sit down.  He lay down on his side on the edge of the tiles, pillowing his head on one elbow.  He leaned forward, lowing his face over the surface of the water. 

Carter knelt down behind him, her hand supporting his back.   

For a moment nothing happened, and then O'Neill made a sudden choking sound.  His back stiffened.  His throat worked, and then he opened his mouth.  His back arched backward, and Carter felt a shudder run through his body.

A grey flash darted out of his mouth, and plopped down into the water.  Titania disappeared into the dark instantly; gone, with barely a splash.  She had jumped out of Jack O'Neill's life as fast as she had jumped in. 

Jack rolled over onto his back, slowly.  He lay staring up at the vaulted roof, his eyes wide.  Carter leaned over him, and put her hand on his chest.  A sigh broke from him, a long long exhalation, as if he had been carrying the weight of the galaxy in his chest, and that burden was finally gone.  His lips moved, silently framing the words _'she's gone.'_

“Jack?" Daniel asked.  He and Teal'c were leaning close.  

For a moment he stared past her as if he couldn't see her.

“Carter?”  he said, hoarsely. 

"I'm right here, sir." 

He turned his head and his eyes focused on her.  “I need …”

“Yes, sir?”

“Nail polish remover. Right now.  I need nail polish remover _right now.”_  

 "I have some at the SGC, sir.”

“Then ... let’s go _there._ Let's all go.”

"Are you feeling well, Jack O'Neill?"

"Good as could be expected.  Pass me the crutch?" 

They levered him up to his feet, but this time his movements seemed to hurt him.  His legs wobbled under him like a giraffe.  His breath hissed with each step, and he was glaring at the floor; trying to hide real pain.  The sooner they got him home, Carter thought, the sooner Fraiser could get him back in bed.  He was walking wounded, but he was wounded, and it would still take time for his broken collarbone and ribs to heal. 

"You guys go on ahead," Carter said.  "Tell Malek we're on our way."

"As you wish, Major Carter," Teal'c said.  He and Daniel walked around the corner. 

O'Neill started leaning more heavily on the crutch as soon as they were out of sight.  Carter stayed at his side, not touching him, not coddling him, as O'Neill made his slow, painful way down the corridor.  Suddenly, he stopped, and sagged down to sit on a bench under a window. 

Carter bent over him.   “I can fetch a wheelchair.” 

"I'm all right, Carter."  He looked up at her. "I'm going to miss her."  

"She'll be fine, sir.  She's a tough kid."

"She's still just a kid.  Even if she is a Goa'uld queen.  She's just a girl; a very young girl.  " 

Carter sat down next to him. 

"Sir, I've been wondering..."

"Yeah?"

"Sir... why?" 

He inhaled, thinking through the question.

"Almost the first thing she said to me," he said.  "She said, "Help me.'" 

"Oh."

"Just like that, 'Help me.'  That's exactly what I said to Teal'c, the first time we met him, back on Chulak." 

"I remember, sir."

"And when she reached out her mind, I knew she was a girl.  I just knew.  I could feel it.  And I couldn't refuse to help.  It would have been like refusing to help Cassie!"

"We'll have to come back here, in seventeen years." 

"If I'm still in the Air Force in seventeen years.  And alive.  And not senile.  And if we still have a Stargate to come through, in seventeen years."

"We'll come back together," Carter said.  "And we'll see how she is." 

"Is that a promise?"

"It's a promise.  If you don't, I will." 

"Then it's a promise."   He bent down, and picked up the crutch again.  “Come on, Carter.  Let’s go home.” 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, Titania looks and sounds like Mary Queen of Scots from the show Reign.
> 
> Edited; changed the ending, a little bit more upbeat.


	5. Epilogue

 And here I am, back where I started. 

 I began in warm water.  I have returned to the same water.  Warm, oxygenated water, rich from the Garden and the desert.  I swim alone now, but I am not lonely.  I am the Lady of the Garden.  Handsome Malek and the others often swim with me, and one day soon I will be joined in the water by my children. 

 And it is for you, my children, that I have recorded these, my genetic memories.  I have written my story into your blood.  I have woven my thoughts into your epigenome, so that you will know who you are, so that you will do what your mother would do. 

 I am not Egeria’s daughter, but I am Egeria’s heir.  The days of the System Lords are over, my children.  You are the future of the Goa’uld.  Go forth beyond the Chappa’ai.  Undo the evil done by the unholy sons of Ra. 

 Go forth, my children, and repopulate the gardens of the stars. 


End file.
